BR  170  .07  1899 
Orr,  James,  1844-1913. 
Neglected  factors  in  the 
study  of  the  early  progress 


Neglected    Factors   in   the 
Study  of  the  Early  Pro- 
gress of  Christianity.   By 
the  Rev.  James  Orr,  d.d.,  Professor  of 

Church   History  in  the  United  Presbyterian  'Theo- 
logical College,  Edinburgh       *       *      *       *      * 


3 

>, 


Logical  8**5^ 


NEW  YORK 
A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  AND  SON 

51    EAST  TENTH   STREET 

1899 


BY    THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


The  Ritschlian  Theology 

and  the  Evangelical  Faith. 

A  Volume  of  "The  Theological  Educator." 

Fcap  8vo,  cloth,  2s.  6d.,  Second  Edition. 

"This  masterly  exposition  and  criticism  of 
the  great  German  theologian.  .  .  .  Dr.  Orr  has 
done  a  work  which  will  enhance  his  reputa- 
tion and  make  all  his  brethren  grateful  to 
him." — Aberdeen  Free  Press. 

"  His  volume  is  not  a  large  one,  but  it  is 
packed  with  matter,  and  it  embodies  the  well- 
considered  results  of  careful  and  extensive 
reading.  It  is  the  best  English  book  we  have 
on  the  subject.  Nothing  is  left  unnoticed 
that  is  necessary  to  a  proper  appreciation  of 
this  influential  school  of  theology." — Critical 
Review. 


MORGAN    LECTURES 

Through  the  liberality  of  Mr.  Henry  A.  Morgan,  N.Y.S. 

The  three  Lectures  in  this  volume  were 
originally  prepared  for  the  Mansfield  Summer 
School,  Oxford,  1894.  They  were  delivered 
as  the  Morgan  Lecture  Course,  in  October, 
1897,  in  the  Theological  Seminary  of  Auburn, 
in  the  State  of  New  York.  They  are  now 
published  by  request  of  the  Faculty. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE   I 

THE    EXTENSION   OF   CHRISTIANITY   LATERALLY  OR   NUME- 
RICALLY  IN   THE  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

PAGE 

New  spirit  in  Early  Church  studies — Baur  and 
his  successors — Influence  of  Pagan  environ- 
ment on  Christianity — Less  attention  given 
to  the  action  outward  of  Christianity  on 
Paganism — The  spread  of  Christianity  late- 
rally,  i.e.,  in  respect  of  mere  numbers,  greater 
than  ordinarily  recognised  —  Estimates  on 
this  subject — Difficulties  arising  from  frag- 
mentariness  of  sources  and  unequal  distribu- 
tion of  Christianity — The  Catacombs  a  new 
factor — Results  from  Catacomb  discoveries 
— Comparison  with  New  Testament  and 
other  data — Early  progress  of  the  Church — 
Christianity  in  Asia  Minor — The  Apologists, 
&c.  —  Carthage  —  Alexandria  —  Antioch  — 
Gibbon's  objections — Gaul  and  Spain — The 
final  struggle — General  result  .  .  .13 
7 


8  CONTENTS 

LECTURE    II 

THE    EXTENSION     OF     CHRISTIANITY    VERTICALLY,    OR    AS 

RESPECTS   THE    DIFFERENT   STRATA    OF    SOCIETY 

PAGE 

Influence  of  Christianity  on  the  higher  ranks  of 
society  under-estimated  —  New  Testament 
evidence  —  Witness  of  the  Catacombs  — 
Pomponia  Grascina — Flavius  Clemens  and 
Domitilla  —  Acilius  Glabrio  —  Notices  in 
Second  Century — The  wealth  of  the  Church 
of  Rome — The  witness  of  the  persecutions 
—  Tertullian  and  Clement  on  luxury  of 
Christians — Relations  of  Christianity  with 
the  Imperial  Court  in  the  Third  Century — 
The  Decian  persecution  and  its  effects — 
The  Church  before  and  under  Diocletian — 
Social  status  of  Church  teachers — Result: 
membership  of  the  Early  Church  not  drawn 
mainly  from  the  lowest,  but  from  the  inter- 
mediate classes,  and  embraced  many  of  the 
wealthier  and  higher  orders  .        .        .        -95 

LECTURE    III 

THE  INTENSIVE  OR  PENETRATIVE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRIS- 
TIANITY ON  THE  THOUGHT  AND  LIFE  OF  THE 
EMPIRE 

The  instreaming  of  Pagan  influences  on  Chris- 
tianity has  for  its  counterpart  the  out- 
streaming  of  Christian  influences  on  Pagan 


CONTENTS  9 

PAGE 

society — These  also  ordinarily  under-esti- 
mated— Silence  of  Pagan  writers  :  what  it 
means — Christianity  and  culture  in  the  First 
Century — New  Testament  Epistles — Seneca 
and  the  Gospel — Rise  and  character  of 
Apology  in  the  Second  Century — The  literary 
attack  on  Christianity  :  Celsus — Significance 
and  spread  of  Gnosticism  —  The  Pagan 
ethical  revival  in  Second  Century — Pagan 
preaching  —  Influence  of  Christianity  on 
these — The  Mysteries  —  The  old  Catholic 
Fathers — Rise  of  Neo-Platonism— Effects  of 
Christianity  on  morals  and  legislation — Con- 
clusion     163 

Appendix 227 

Index 231 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
LATERALLY  OR  NUMERICALLY  IN 
THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE 


New  spirit  in  Early  Church  studies — Baur  and  his 
successors — Influence  of  Pagan  environment  on 
Christianity — Less  attention  given  to  the  action 
outward  of  Christianity  on  Paganism  —  The 
spread  of  Christianity  laterally,  i.e.,  in  respect  of 
mere  numbers,  greater  than  ordinarily  recog- 
nised— Estimates  on  this  subject — Difficulties 
arising  from  fragmentariness  of  sources  and 
unequal  distribution  of  Christianity — The  Cata- 
combs a  new  factor — Results  from  Catacomb 
discoveries — Comparison  with  New  Testament 
and  other  data — Early  progress  of  the  Church — 
Christianity  in  Asia  Minor — The  Apologists,  &c. 
—  Carthage  —  Alexandria  —  Antioch  —  Gibbon's 
objections — Gaul  and  Spain — The  final  struggle 
— General  result. 


LECTURE    I 

THE  EXTENSION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  LATER- 
ALLY OR  NUMERICALLY  m  THE  ROMAN 
"EMPIRE 

IT  is  unnecessary  at  the  commencement 
of  these  lectures  to  do  more  than  refer 
to  the  changes  which,  within  the  last  few 
decades,  have  taken  place  in  the  spirit  and 
methods  of  the  treatment  of  Church  History. 
If  there  was  a  time  within  living  memory 
when  the  charge  could  justly  be  brought 
against   this   branch  of  study  of  being   the 

dreariest   in    the   theological    curriculum — a 
13 


14         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

collection  of  dry  bones  and  dead  contro- 
versies— that  time  may  confidently  be  said 
to  have  passed  away ;  and  with  it  has  disap- 
peared the  idea  that  Church  History  must 
of  necessity  be  an  u?iprogressive  science — the 
repetition  of  the  old,  unchanging  story — 
seeing  that  the  facts  on  which  it  is  based 
must  always  remain  precisely  what  they  are. 
The  changes  referred  to  have  come  about  not 
so  much  from  the  discovery  of  new  materials 
— though  of  these  also  unremitting  research 
has  yielded  an  abundant  supply — as  from 
the  new  historical  temper  in  which  scholars 
have  approached  their  task  ;  from  the  fresh 
power  acquired  of  reading  aright  the  mean- 
ing of  the  data  already  possessed,  and  of 
setting  them  in  new  lights  and  relations ; 
from  increased  skill  in  colligating  them,  and 
in  interpreting  the  significance  of  unnoticed 
details  in  their  bearing  on  an  entire  situation 
— in  which  lies  so  much  of  the  higher  art  of 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     15 

the  historian.  Just  as  the  naturalist  is  re- 
puted to  be  able  from  a  single  bone  to  re- 
construct the  form  of  some  creature  of  the 
past,  so  our  modern  scholars  aim  at  showing 
that  the  minutest  fact  is  not  isolated,  but 
stands  in  organic  relation  with  the  all-per- 
vading life  of  the  time  ;  and  from  comparison 
of  the  facts  they  seek  to  re-create  for  us  a 
picture  whose  justification  is  its  verisimili- 
tude, and  its  power  of  interpreting  the  sum- 
total  of  the  phenomena. 

These  gains  which  have  accrued  to  Church 
History  from  the  combined  philosophical, 
historical,  and  critical  movement  of  the  last 
half  century,  have  been  reaped  nowhere  more 
largely  than  in  the  study  of  the  earliest  age 
of  Christianity.  The  initial  impulse  here 
belongs  indisputably  to  the  school  of  Baur, 
which,  however  ruled  by  false  presupposi- 
tions, and  open  to  challenge  in  its  con- 
clusions,  has    left    on    this    whole    field    of 


16         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

investigation  its  deep  and  abiding  impress. 
If  Baur's  own  criticism  has  gradually  had  to 
retract  itself  within  comparatively  narrow 
limits,  it  may  claim,  like  the  Nile  waters,  to 
have  fertilised  in  the  height  of  its  overflow 
even  the  plains  from  which  subsequently  it 
had  to  retreat.  From  Baur's  day  a  new  life 
entered  into  Early  Church  History  studies. 
Ritschl,  at  first  a  disciple,  then  an  opponent, 
undertook  an  independent  investigation  into 

'  the  origin  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church ;  Light- 
foot,  not  without  aid  from  Ritschl,  re-dis- 
cussed the  question  of  the  Ministry,  and 
cognate  problems  of  the  Apostolic  age,  but 
revealed  also  the  unrivalled  strength  of  his 
own  scholarship  in  his  handling  of  the  litera- 

'  ture  of  the  age  next  succeeding ;  Hatch, 
freshest  of  English  minds  in  this  department, 
sought  to  show  how  Church  ideas  and  usages 
took  shape  under  the  action  of  forces  in  the 

_,  Gentile  world  ;  Harnack  and  the  later  Ritsch- 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     17 

Hans  have  carried  out  more  systematically 
the  idea  of  the  rise  of  ecclesiastical  dogma 
through  the  importation  of  the  ideas  and 
methods  of  Greek  philosophy  ;  Neumann  and 
Ramsay  discuss  the  relations  of  the  Chris- 
tians to  the  Roman  State,  and  the  latter 
scholar  has  instituted  a  series  of  researches 
of  his  own,  which  mark  a  new  era  in  the 
discussion  of  Apostolic  and  sub-Apostolic 
history.  Other  names,  as  Weizsacker's,  will 
readily  occur.  From  this  re-digging  of  the 
soil  in  all  directions  and  microscopic  scrutiny 
of  every  fibre  and  detail  of  the  relevant 
material,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that 
enormous  advantage  will  result. 

There  is,  however,  one  aspect  of  this  note- 
worthy revival  of  interest  in  Early  Church 
History  which  the  purpose  of  these  lectures 
requires  that  I  should  now  more  particularly 
notice.     It  must  strike  the  observant  student 

—at   least   can   hardly  fail    to   do   so  when 
2 


i8         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

attention  is  called  to  it — that  all  this  move- 
ment of  mind  in  the  direction  of  a  better 
comprehension  of  the  early  development  of 
the  Church — of  the  manner  in  which  it 
gradually  shaped  itself  in  policy,  in  doctrine, 
and  in  usages — is  governed  mainly  by  the 
idea  of  tracing  the  influence  on  Christianity  of 
its  Pagan  environment — of  that  intellectual, 
moral,  political,  and  religious  environment, 
which  constituted  the  world  into  which 
Christianity  entered,  and  which  could  not 
from  its  very  nature  but  powerfully  act  upon 
and  modify  the  new  faith  ;  but  that  the  same 
attention  has  not  been  given  to  a  phenomenon 
which  is  the  counterpart  of  this,  viz.,  the  action 
outwards  of  Christianity  on  that  Pagan  en- 
vironment, altering,  re-shaping,  modifying  it. 
I  am,  of  course,  well  aware  that  the  action  of 
Christianity  on  Pagan  society — on  its  ideas, 
laws,  institutions,  morals — has  in  many  of  its 
aspects  formed  the  subject  of  learned  inves- 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     19 

tigation.1  But  I  do  not  find  that  it  has  been 
taken  much  account  of  in  this  most  recent 
phase  of  the  study  of  Early  Church  History 
which  I  have  specially  in  view.  There  has 
been  much  investigation  into  the  modes  and 
the  results  of  the  inflow  of  Pagan  ideas  and 
associations  into  Christianity,  but  there  has 
not  been  the  same  carefulness  in  inquiring 
whether  the  flow  was  all  on  one  side,  whether, 
as  is  antecedently  probable,  there  was  not  a 
current  outward  corresponding  to  the  current 
inward — to  borrow  a  term  from  science,  an 
exosmose  corresponding  to  the  endosmose — 
and  what  the  strength  of  this  outward  current 
might  be.  It  has  not  been  sufficiently  per- 
ceived— at  least  so  I  venture  to  think — that 
precisely  in  the  proportion  that  the  progress 
of  investigation    requires   us   to   postulate  a 

1  Such  books  may  be  referred  to  as  Troplong's 
De  Vinfluence  du  Christianisme  sur  le  droit  civil  dcs 
Romains,  Schmidt's  Social  Results  of  Early  Christianity, 
Lecky's  European  Morals,  Brace's  Gesta  Christi,  &c. 


20         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

greater  influence  of  Paganism  on  Christian 
ideas  and  institutions  than  has  formerly  been 
assumed,  there  arises  the  probability,  nay,  the 
certainty,  that  Christianity  likewise  was  a 
factor  of  greater  importance  in  the  world  of 
Paganism  than  had  previously  been  imagined, 
and  that  traces  of  this  influence  are  also  to  be 
discovered,  if  they  are  as  diligently  looked 
for.  Action  and  reaction,  in  this  as  in  other 
spheres,  may  be  presumed  to  be  equal ;  and 
if  the  action  is  proved  to  be  greater  than 
former  representations  allowed,  it  may  be 
anticipated  that  the  reaction,  in  the  case  of  a 
force  of  such  undoubted  magnitude,  will 
prove  to  be  greater  as  well. 

I  am  now  in  a  position  to  explain  with 
some  definiteness  the  character  of  the  thesis 
I  propose  to  defend  in  these  lectures.  I 
think  facts  do  exist — and  many  of  them — to 
show  that  there  really  was  this  current  out- 
wards of  which  I  speak,  and  that  Christianity 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    21 

was  actually  a  much  more  prominent  factor 
in  Pagan  society  than  the  ordinary  repre- 
sentations would  lead  us  to  believe ;  in  other 
words,  that  just  as  the  trend  of  investigation 
has  been  to  show  that  there  was  a  much 
greater  influence  of  its  Pagan  environment 
upon  the  Church  than  has  generally  been 
conceded  ;  so,  correspondingly,  the  direction 
of  recent  evidence  has  been  to  establish  that 
the  effects  of  Christianity  on  Pagan  society, 
both  extensively  and  intensively,  were  like- 
wise greater  than  has  been  admitted.  I  am 
fully  conscious  that  in  treating  this  subject 
I  can  say  nothing  that  is  new  to  scholars — 
little,  perhaps,  that  is  new  to  any  one.  The 
facts  to  which  I  am  to  refer  are,  most  of 
them,  sufficiently  familiar — are,  at  the  least, 
readily  accessible  ;  but  we  have  hourly  evi- 
dence that  it  is  possible  for  a  fact  to  be 
familiar,  and  yet  not  to  receive  its  due  weight 
in  the  study  of  a  subject.     It  may  help  to 


22         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

disarm  criticism  if  I  say  that,  in  what  I 
advance,  I  desire  to  disclaim  anything  like 
dogmatism.  I  put  forth  these  ideas  tenta- 
tively, and  rather  with  the  view  of  their 
being  canvassed  and  checked  by  others,  than 
as  definitive  conclusions  of  my  own  mind. 
Their  end  will  be  gained  if  they  are  in  any 
degree  provocative  of  reflection  in  those 
who  may  honour  them  with  their  attention. 
My  treatment,  which  I  should  wish  to  be 
taken  in  its  entirety,  will  be  directed  to 
show : — 

I.  That  Christianity  had  a  larger  exten- 
sion laterally,  i.e.,  in  point  of  mere  numbers, 
in  the  Roman  Empire,  than  the  ordinary 
representations  allow. 

II.  That  it  had  a  much  larger  extension 
vertically,  i.e.,  as  respects  the  different  strata 
of  society,  than  is  commonly  believed ; 
and — 

III.  That  it  had  a  much  greater  influence 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     23 

intensively  or  penetratively,  i.e.,  in  its  effects 
on  the  thought  and  life  of  the  age,  than  is 
generally  acknowledged. 

The   remaining   part   of   this    lecture   will 
be  devoted  to  the  first  of  these  topics. 

I. 

The    extension     of   Christianity    laterally 
or  numerically  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  attitude  of  mind  of  most  historians 
on  this  question  of  the  numerical  extension 
of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  world  may 
be  described  as  highly  conservative.  It  is 
difficult  to  understand  why  this  should  be 
so,  except  that  a  prepossession  in  favour  of 
a  very  moderate  rate  of  increase  having 
been  engendered  by  the  authority  of  certain 
great  names,  the  feeling  has  established 
itself  that  this  traditionally-received  opinion 
ought  not  to  be  lightly  disturbed.  Whatever  • 
changes  are  assumed  to  be  necessary  in  our 


24         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

conceptions  of  the  relations  of  Christianity 
to  Paganism  in  other  respects,  it  is  taken 
for  granted  with  wonderful  unanimity  that 
there  is  neither  room  nor  call  for  any  revision 
of  opinion  here.  Every  one  is  familiar  with 
Gibbon's  estimate  that  the  Christians  in  the 
time  of  Constantine  constituted  at  most  one- 
twentieth  part  of  the  population  of  Rome, 
and  a  like  proportion  of  the  whole  subjects 
of  the  Empire.1  Friedlander  accepts  and 
endorses  this  computation.2  Chastel,  a 
French  writer,  without,  however,  giving  data, 

1  Decline  and  Fall,  ch.  xv.  Gibbon  estimates  the 
population  of  Rome  at  about  1,000,000,  and  gives  the 
Christians  one-twentieth  of  these,  or  about  50,000. 
The  population  of  the  Empire  he  takes  (ch.  ii.)  to  be 
about  120,000,000,  which  would  give  about  6,000,000 
Christians  for  the  whole  Empire.  For  other  estimates 
of  the  population  of  Rome  and  the  Empire,  see 
V.  Schultze's  work  referred  to  below,  Unlergang  des 
Heidenthums,  I.  p.  9.  Scb.ultze  computes  100,000,000 
for  the  Empire,  and,  "with  greatest  probability," 
600-810,000  for  the  Capital. 

2  Sittengeschichte  Roms,  III.  p.  531. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    25 

reckons  the  Christians  at  about  one-twelfth 
of  the  population,1  and  this,  or  one-tenth, 
perhaps,  represents  the  average  opinion. 
Victor  Schultze,  one  of  the  best  informed 
of  recent  investigators,  estimates  the  pro- 
portion at  one-tenth,  but  with  important 
qualifications  which  practically  nullify  his 
verdict.  "  This  reckoning,"  he  says,  "  remains 
at  all  events  far  behind  the  actual  number. 
.  .  .  The  investigator  assuredly  gains  from 
the  testing  of  the  sources  in  detail  the  clear 
impression  that,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century,  the  Church  on  the  great 
world-theatre  of  over  103,000  geographical 
square  miles  numbered  more  than  10,000,000. 
It  is  hardly  credible  that  the  number  of  Jews 
at   that  time  should  have  exceeded    that  of 

1  One-fifteenth  in  the  West,  and  one-tenth  in  the 
East. — Hist,  de  la  destruct.  du  Paganisme,  pp.  35-6. 
Chastel  rejects  Gibbon's  computation  as  too  low,  and 
those  of  Staudlin  (one-half)  and  of  Matter  (one-fifth) 
as  too  high. 


26         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  Christians."  *  Others  wisely  decline  to 
commit  themselves  to  a  precise  estimate, 
still,  however,  usually  with  the  presumption 
that  the  proportion  was  exceedingly  small. 
Thus  Uhlhorn  scouts  what  he  represents  as 
Tertullian's  statement  that  the  Christians  in 
a  single  province  were  more  numerous  than 
the  whole  Roman  army,  which,  he  says,  as 
if  it  were  an  idea  not  for  a  moment  to  be 
entertained,  would  make  about  9,000,000 
Christians  in  the  Empire  !  2 

In  face  of  so  weighty  a  consensus  of 
authorities,  I  feel  that  it  requires  some 
courage  to  defend  a  different  opinion.  I 
am  emboldened,  however,  by  the  considera- 

1  Untergangdes  Griesch.-Rom.  Heidenthums,  I.  p.  23. 
Schultze  is  professor  at  Greifswald. 

2  Conflict  of  Christianity  (E.T.),  p.  264.  Tertullian, 
however,  does  not  quite  put  the  matter  in  the  way 
stated  (Apol.  37).  Uhlhorn  says  elsewhere  :  "  It  is 
generally  assumed  that  they  formed  about  one- 
twelfth  of  the  whole  population  in  the  East,  and 
in  the  West  about  one-fifteenth  "  (p.  402). 


EARLY  PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    27 

tion  that  in  pleading  for  a  much  larger 
influence  of  Christianity  numerically  than 
these  estimates  allow,  I  do  not  stand  abso- 
lutely alone.  A  few  of  the  older  writers,  as 
Matter,  put  in  a  plea  for  one-fifth,  or  even 
a  higher  proportion,  but  their  voices  have 
scarcely  been  heard  in  the  general  chorus 
for  a  more  moderate  view.  Still  a  tendency 
is  beginning  to  manifest  itself  to  a  revision 
of  the  traditional  estimate.  Canon  Robert- 
son, among  recent  historians,  apparently 
leans  to  a  proportion  between  one-tenth  and 
one-fifth.1  And  Keim,  in  his  posthumous 
work,  Rom  und  das  Christenthum,  expresses 
the  belief  that  even  at  the  close  of  the  second 
century,  the  Christians  were  one-sixth  of 
the  population  of  the  Empire.2  G.  Boissier, 
in  his  spirited  book,  La  Fin  du  Paganisme, 

1  Hist,  of  Churchy  bk.  1,  ch.  viii. 

2  P.  419.  "  It  is  not  saying  too  much,"  he  writes, 
"to  name  a  sixth  part  of  the  Roman  Empire 
Christian." 


28         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

speaks  even  more  strongly  on  the  arbitrari- 
ness of  modern  scholars,  and  their  unwarrant- 
able rejection  of  evidence  on  this  subject. 
After  quoting  the  well-known  passages  from 
Tertullian,  Pliny,  and  Tacitus  on  the  wide 
diffusion  of  Christianity,  he  says  :  "  This  is 
precisely  what  they  (the  objectors)  refuse  to 
admit.  In  the  first  place,  they  will  take  no 
account  of  the  affirmations  of  Tertullian.  He 
was,  they  say,  a  rhetorician  and  a  sectary, 
facts  which  ought  to  render  him  doubly 
suspected.  It  would  be  ridiculous  to  take 
seriously  his  fine  phrases,  and  give  his 
rhetorical  amplifications  the  force  of  argu- 
ment. As  for  the  letter  of  Pliny,  and  the 
passage  in  Tacitus,  we  have  seen  above  that 
some  do  not  believe  them  to  be  authentic, 
and  the  statements  which  they  contain  on 
the  subject  of  the  numbers  of  the  Christians 
are  one  of  the  chief  reasons  alleged  for 
rejecting  them.     There  is  found  in  them  an 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     29 

exaggeration  which  betrays  the  forger,  and 
appears  altogether  incredible.  ...  It  is  pro- 
claimed, finally,  as  a  principle  which  needs 
no  demonstration,  that  it  is  impossible  that 
a  religion  should  make  such  progress  in  so 
short  a  time.  I  confess  that  this  confidence 
confounds  me.  Is  it  reasonable  to  settle  in 
a  word  questions  so  obscure,  so  little  under- 
stood ? " *  Even  V.  Schultze,  as  we  saw 
above,  is  not  very  sure  of  his  ground,  and 
declares  that  the  reckoning  he  gives  remains 
far  behind  the  actual  numbers.  Elsewhere, 
indeed,  he  uses  language  which  would  imply 
that  the  Christians,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century,  might  be  one-fifth,  or  even 
more,  of  the  population.2 

1  I-  PP-  445-46- 

2  Thus  he  speaks  of  the  heathenism  of  the  time  as 
"  over  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  the  Empire  "  . 
again  "  as  sixty  or  eighty  millions  out  of  one  hundred 
millions  "  ;  and  again  of  the  Christians  soon  after  the 
Edict  of  Toleration  as  "at  most  one-fifth  of  the 
population   of  the   Empire"  (I.  pp.  39,  59). 


> 


30         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Two  things  specially  make  it  difficult  to 
arrive  at  exact  conclusions  as  to  the  number 
of  Christians  in  the  Roman  Empire  in  this 
early  period.  One  is  the  exceeding  paucity 
and  fragmentariness  of  our  sources  of  inform- 
ation ;  the  other  is  that  the  rate  of  progress 
in  the  different  parts  of  the  Empire  was  very 
unequal — much  higher,  e.g.t  in  the  East  than 
in  the  West ;  in  Italy  and  North  Africa  than 
in  a  province  like  Gaul.  "  The  imperfection 
of  the  record,"  as  geologists  would  say,  must 
ever  be  remembered.  We  shall  find  as  we 
proceed  abundant  illustration  of  the  danger 
of  drawing  wide  inferences  from  isolated 
data,  or  of  supposing  that  because  nothing 
happens  to  be  said  of  the  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity in  a  particular  district,  therefore  pro- 
gress was  not  being  made.  The  second 
century,  for  instance,  is  already  approaching 
its  close  before  we  get  even  a  glimpse  of  the 
large   and   flourishing    Church   of    Carthage, 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    31 

which,  with  the  Church  of  Alexandria,  then 
suddenly  starts  into  visibility.1  On  the  other 
hand,  the  rate  of  progress  was  undoubtedly 
very  unequal,  and  even  more  instructive  than 
the  inequality  of  progress  is  the  fact  which 
furnishes  the  principal  explanation  of  it.  It 
is  characteristic  of  the  advance  of  Chris- 
tianity that  all  through  it  struck  at  the  great  • 
centres,  and  followed  the  great  lines  of  inter- 
communication in  the  Roman  world  ;  that  its 
chief  victories  were  won  where  Greek  and  <^ 
Roman  culture  had  prepared  the  way  for  it ; 
and  that  its  posts  of  strength  and  influence 
were   chiefly  in   the   wealthy   and   populous    <^ 

1  "  Of  the  African  Church  before  the  close  of  the 
second  century,  when  a  flood  of  light  is  suddenly 
thrown  up  by  the  writings  of  Tertullian,  we  know 
absolutely  nothing"  (Lightfoot,  Philippians,  p.  224). 
Another  example  is  Cyrene,  where  the  size  and 
adornment  of  the  graves  show  the  existence  of  a 
numerous  and  well-to-do  community,  of  which  we 
do  not  hear  otherwise  (Cf.  V.  Schultze,  I.  p.  21). 
In  the  troubles  of  the  times  this  church  afterwards 
fell  into  decay. 


'■> 


32         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

cities — Rome,  Corinth,  Antioch,  Alexandria, 
Carthage,  Lyons,  and  the  like — from  which  it 
could  spread  into,  and  best  dominate,  the  sur- 
rounding districts.1  Its  method — the  same  fol- 
lowed by  Paul  in  his  missionary  work — was  to 
seize  and  occupy  the  leading  vantage-points, 
with  a  view  to  an  ultimate  wider  diffusion. 
Numbers,  then,  in  a  case  of  this  kind,  are 
assuredly  not  everything.  As  important  as 
numbers  was  the  way  in  which  the  numbers 
were  distributed,  and  the  spirit  that  animated 
them.  It  is  not  overlooked  by  the  writers 
from  whose  opinions  we  shall  have  to  dissent, 
that,  though  numerically  so  feeble, — as  they 
regard  the  matter, — Christianity  had  yet, 
through  its  inherent  spiritual  energy,  and 
ever-strengthening  organisation,  early  made 
itself  a  factor  of  the  first  importance  in  the 
Roman    Empire, — that,    as     Merivale    says, 

1  Cf.   V.   Schultze,   I.  p.  15 ;    Ramsay,   Church   in 
Roman  Empire,  p.  147  (1st  edit.),  &c. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    33 

"  The  active  and  growing  strength  of  the 
Roman  world  was  truly  theirs — theirs  was 
the  future  of  all  civilised  society."  *  But  the 
question  is  pertinent  whether  this  acknow- 
ledged power  of  Christianity  could  have  been 
exerted  by  the  mere  fraction  of  the  popula- 
tion which  they  suppose  the  Christian  Church 
to  have  been  ;  or  whether  the  immense  moral 
energy  which,  at  the  end  of  three  centuries, 
and  on  the  back  of  a  prolonged  and  deadly 
persecution,  raised  the  Church  to  a  place 
of  undisputed  political  supremacy  in  the 
Empire,  does  not  of  itself  point  to  some 
fault  in  the  numerical  estimate.  I  cannot,  of 
course,  in  a  brief  lecture,  go  into  all  the 
evidence.  I  can  only  take  test  cases,  which 
fairly  represent  large  areas,  and  may  serve  to 
illustrate  principles.  __ 

Now  that   there  is  need  for  some  revisal 
of  currently   received    notions    on    the    rate 

1  Epochs  of  Early  Church  History,  p.  2. 
3 


34         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

of  progress  of  early  Christianity  is  shown,  I 
think,  very  convincingly  by  one  branch  of 
evidence,  the  full  bearings  of  which  on  our 
subject  seem  as  yet  to  be  very  imperfectly 
appreciated.  I  refer  to  the  remarkable  Cata- 
comb explorations  of  De  Rossi  and  others  in 
the  present  century.  It  is  customary  to  dis- 
count the  glowing  testimonies  of  the  second 
century  Apologists,  and  of  early  Christian 
writers  generally,  on  the  score  of  rhetorical 
exaggeration  ;  but  here,  opened  to  us  within 
recent  years,  is  another  book  of  surpassing 
interest,  the  pages  of  which  are  constantly 
being  more  clearly  deciphered  by  skilled  in- 
terpreters, and  which  promises  to  throw  a 
flood  of  reliable  light  on  just  such  problems 
as  we  are  dealing  with.  It  is  surprising  that 
these  discoveries  have  not  been  made  more 
use  of  by  Church  historians.1     Their  effect,  I 

1  Dr.  Schaff  speaks  of  the  importance  of  these  dis- 
coveries, and  notes  the  neglect  of  them  by  Church 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF    CHRISTIANITY    35 

take  it,  must  be  largely  to  modify  our  ideas 
of  the  numbers  of  the  Christians,  and  to 
compel  the  acknowledgment  that  they  formed 
a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  population  of 
the  Empire  than  has  hitherto  been  sus- 
pected. It  will  be  convenient  to  take  this 
new  evidence  first,  then  to  ask  how  far  it  is 
corroborated  or  contradicted  by  the  other 
evidence  at  our  command. 

The  Catacombs,  as  most  are  now  aware 
are  immense  subterranean  burial-places,  ex- 
cavated in  the  soft  volcanic  tufa,  near  the 
great  roads,  within  a  radius  of  about  three 
miles  around  Rome.  There  are  certain 
facts  regarding  them  which  may  now  be 
regarded    as    definitely    ascertained.1      They 

historians.  He  himself  gives  a  good  account  of 
them,  but  makes  little  use  of  their  testimony  in  the 
body  of  his  work.  He  mentions  their  witness  to 
the  numbers  of  the  Christians,  but  does  not  well 
know  what  to  make  of  it. — History  of  Church  (Ante- 
Nic),  Preface,  and  pp.  288,  295. 

1  The  name,  of  doubtful  derivation,  was  originally 


36         NEGLECTED    FACTORS   IN   THE 

are  allowed  to  be  Christian,  and  purely 
Christian  cemeteries1;  they  are  of  enormous 
extent ;  the  number  of  the  dead  buried  in 
them  mounts  up  to  millions ;  the  time 
allowed  for  this  burial  is  about  three  cen- 
turies —  in  reality,  little  more  than  two 
centuries  and  a  half,  for  the  excavations 
had  hardly  begun  before  the  second  century 
and  the  numbers  interred  after  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century  were  small  in  propor- 
tion to  those  in  the  preceding  period.  After 
the  sack  of  Rome  by  the  Goths  in  A.D.  410, 
interment  within  them  ceased.     The  excava- 

that  of  a  territory  adjacent  to  the  cemetery  of  St. 
Sebastian/  and  only  subsequently  was  extended 
to  all  the  cemeteries.  Over  forty  catacombs  are 
enumerated  —  twenty  -  five  or  twenty-six  greater, 
the  rest  smaller.  For  particulars  see  the  works  (in 
English)  of  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  Lanciani, 
Withrow,  Art.  in  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities, 
Black's  Handbook  to  Christ,  and  Ecc.  Rome,  &c. 

1  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  I.  p.  376 ;  Diet,  of 
Christ.  Antiquities,  I.  p.  296;  Northcote's  Epitaphs, 
pp.  22  ff. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    37 

tions  consist  of  galleries  and  chambers,  some- 
times in  descending  levels  of  from  three  to 
five  stories,  and  throughout  their  entire  area 
are  literally  packed  with  graves,  the  dead 
being  sometimes  buried  in  the  floors,  as  well 
as  in  the  walls  and  rooms.  (  What  is  not  so 
certain  is  the  precise  figure  to  be  put  on  their 
extent,  or  on  the  number  of  the  dead  interred 
in  them.  On  these  points  estimates  widely 
vary.  The  most  careful  and  reliable  calcula- 
tions are  those  of  Michele  Stefano  de  Rossi, 
brother  and  coadjutor  of  the  famous  explorer, 
who,  on  the  basis  of  the  exact  measurement 
of  six  different  catacombs,  reckons  the  total 
length  of  the  passages  at  587  geographical 
miles.1     As  respects  the  numbers  entombed, 


1  See  the  details  of  measurements  in  Lanciani's 
Pagan  and  Christian  Rome,  p.  319.  Northcote  and 
Brownlow,  Roma  Soft.  I.  <p.  2,  give  the  apparently 
conflicting  estimate  of  "  more  than  350  miles."  But 
the  appended  words,  "i.e.,  more  than  the  whole 
length  of  Italy  itself,"  show  that  the  same  calcula- 


38         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

we  may  set  aside  at  once  as  fabulous  the 
earlier  computation  of  Father  Marchi,  who 
calculating  the  length  of  the  passages  at 
900  miles,  reckoned  the  dead  interred  in 
them  at  7,000,000 ! T  A  less  extravagant 
calculation  gives  over  3,831,000,  or  nearly 
4,000,000  graves.2  Michele  de  Rossi,  who 
has  had  most  to  do  with  the  surveying  and 
mapping  out  of  these  subterranean  regions, 
adopting  a  more  moderate  multiplier,  reaches 
a  minimum  of  1,752,000.3     Now  let  any  one 

tion  is  intended,  and  the  350  is  either  a  misprint  for 
550,  or  there  is  some  other  confusion  about  the 
numbers. 

1  Dr.  Schaff  amazingly  accepts  this  computation  of 
Father  Marchi's  in  speaking  of  the  number  of  the 
martyrs  (I.  p.  80),  id  complete  contradiction  of  his 
calculation  of  the  numbers  of  the  Christians  else- 
where. 

-  See  Withrow,  p.  21.  He  mentions  that  "in  the 
single  crypt  of  St.  Lucina,  100  ft.  by  180  ft.,  De  Rossi 
counted  over  700  loculifrand  estimated  that  nearly 
twice  as  many  were  destroyed,  giving  a  total  of 
2,000  graves  in  this  area." 

3  Lanciani,  nt  supra. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     39 

reflect  what  computations  like  these  imply. 
Taking  the  period  of  interment  at  its  longest, 
we  cannot  count  more  than  ten  generations 
of  Christians  buried  in  the  Catacombs.  As- 
suming that  the  numbers  are  anything  like 
what  the  above  computations  indicate,  we 
obtain  from  them  the  basis  of  a  simple,  but  suf- 
ficiently startling  calculation.  On  the  larger 
reckoning— that  of  about  4,000,000  graves — 
we  have  a  Christian  population  for  one  genera- 
tion, in  and  about  Rome,  of  nearly  400,000 ; 
on  the  smaller  computation,  a  population  of 
about  175,000.  But  the  system  of  averages 
in  such  a  case  is  clearly  misleading,  for  the 
number  of  Christians  was  undoubtedly  small 
in  the  earlier  generations,  and  reached  its 
maximum  towards  the  close  of  the  era  of 
persecution.  Our  number  175,000  would, 
therefore,  represent  rather  a  middle  point, 
say,  about  the  years  A.D.  230  or  250.  Com- 
pare this  now  with  the  calculation  of  Gibbon. 


4o         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

He  estimates,  as  we  saw,  the  population  of 
Rome  at  about  1,000,000,  and  the  number  of 
Christians  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century  at  about  50,000,  or  one-twentieth 
part  of  the  whole.  In  reality,  unless  the 
testimony  of  the  Catacombs  has  been 
totally  misread,  they  might  have  been  any- 
thing between  one-third  and  one-half.  And 
if  Gibbon  is  right  in  supposing  tMt  the  pro- 
portion throughout  the  Empire  was  analogous 
to  that  in  Rome,  it  would  be  a  very  moderate 
computation  indeed  to  regard  it  as  one-fifth. 
In  any  case,  it  seems  to  me,  there  must  be  a 
heightening  of  the  reckoning.  Cut  down  the 
figures  even  to  1,000,000  and  the  proportion 
of  Christians  to  the  total  population  is  still 
vastly  greater  than  Gibbon  allows.  I  think, 
therefore,  I  am  justified  in  speaking  of  the 
Catacomb  discoveries  as  a  "  neglected  factor  " 
in  this  study  of  Early  Church  History — one 
which  only  recently  Church  historians  have 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    41 

taken  the  trouble  to  refer  to  at  all,  and  of 
the  bearings  of  which  even  yet  they  show 
generally  a  most  inadequate  appreciation. 
I  go  on  to  ask  whether  there  is  anything 
in  the  other  evidence  in  our  possession 
which  helps  to  corroborate,  or  which  con- 
tradicts, the  testimony  they  have  yielded. 

I  begin  naturally  with  the  Church  of  Rome, 
to  which  the  Catacomb  discoveries  refer.  Our 
witnesses  here  are  the  New  Testament,  and 
early  secular  and  ecclesiastical  history.  And 
what  do  these  witnesses  tell  us  ?  The  facts 
above  cited  are  sufficiently  startling,  but  are 
they  really  more  wonderful  than  the  oldest 
notices  we  possess  of  the  progress  of  the 
gospel  in  the  Imperial  City  would  lead  us 
to  expect?  The  origin,  of  the  Church  in 
Rome  is  hidden  in  obscurity,  but  there  are 
certain  things  about  its  early  history  which 
we  do  know  very  well.  We  know,  for  in- 
stance, that  as  early  as  A.D.  52,  or  little  more 


42         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

that  twenty  years  after  the  Ascension,  accord- 
ing to  the  now  almost  universally  received 
interpretation  of  the  well-known  passage  in 
Suetonius  (Judceos  impulsore  Chresto  assidue 
tumultuantes  Roma  expulit),  the  disturbances 
in  the  Jewish  quarters  in  Rome,  arising  from 
the  disputes  of  Jews  and  Christians,  were 
such  as  to  lead  the  Emperor  Claudius  to 
issue  an  edict  for  the  banishment  of  all  Jews 
from  Rome x  ;  we  know  that  six  years  later 
(A.D.  58),  and  prior  to  his  own  visit  to  the 
city,  the  Apostle  Paul  wrote  to  the  Church 
in  this  city  one  of  his  longest  and  most  im- 
portant Epistles,  in  which  he  speaks  of  its 
faith  as  "proclaimed   throughout  the  whole 

1  Suet.  Claud.  25  ;  cf.  Acts  xviii.  2.  "  Probably  the 
measures  which  the  Emperor  took  against  the 
Roman  Jews  had  their  origin  in  the  continual  dis- 
turbances arising  from  the  strife  between  Jews  and 
Christians"  (Neumann,  Der  Romische  Staal,  p.  4). 
Thus  most  writers.  Prof.  Ramsay  puts  the  date  a 
little  earlier,  a.d.  50  (St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  ch. 
xi.  4). 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     43 

world  " *  ;  we  know  that  six  years  later  again 
(A.D.  64),  according  to  the  testimony  of  the 
Roman  historian  Tacitus,  the  number  of  the 
Christians  involved  in  Nero's  persecution  was 
"  an  immense  multitude  "  (multitude)  ingens)  2  ; 
while,  towards  the  close  of  the  century,  the 
Roman  Clement,  referring  to  the  same  per- 
secution, uses  an  almost  identical  expression, 
speaking  of"  a  great  multitude  "  (iro\v  irXriOog) 
who  had  suffered  for  Christ.3     All  this,  be  it 


1  Rom.  i.  8 ;  cf.  Lightfoot,  Philippians,  p.  25. 

2  Ann.  xv.  44.  Schultze  remarks  that  the  muttitudo 
ingens  is  of  those  taken  and  condemned,  and  that 
there  was  certainly  as  great  a  number  of  women, 
children,  and  other  Christians  who  were  not  brought 
to  judgment  (I.  9).  Cf.  Dr.  Lightfoot's  remarks  on 
the  attempts  of  modern  critics  to  invalidate  the  force 
of  this  testimony  of  Tacitus  {Ignatius,  I.  pp.  9-10). 

3  Epist.  to  Corinth.  6.  The  progress  of  Christianity 
was  more  than  maintained  during  the  rest  of  the 
century.  "  During  the  reigns  of  Vespasian  and  Titus, 
and  in  the  early  years  of  Domitian,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  Christianity  had  made  rapid 
advances  in   the  metropolis  of  the  world.     In  its 


44         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

remembered,  within  the  first  century,  when 
Catacomb  excavations  had  yet  hardly  begun. 
And  what  was  going  on  in  Rome  in  this 
century  was,  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt, 
going  on  elsewhere.  I  cannot  go  into  details, 
but  would  only  ask  whether  Christianity  must 
not  have  become  an  exceedingly  powerful 
force  before,  in  a  city  like  Ephesus,  for  ex- 
ample, we  could  have  the  adepts  in  magical 
arts  bringing  their  books,  and  burning  them 
to  the  value  of  50,000  pieces  of  silver T ;  or 
have  a  riot  like  that  instigated  by  Demetrius 
the  silversmith,  on  the  plea  that  not  only  the 
trade  of  shrine-making  was  brought  into  dis- 
repute, but  the  worship  of  the  great  goddess 
Artemis  was  in  peril  of  being  subverted  "  not 


great  stronghold — the  household  of  the  Cassars — 
more  especially  its  progress  would  be  felt "  (Light- 
foot,  Clement,  I.  p.  27). 

1  Acts  xix.  18,  19.  About  £2,000  of  our  money. 
"  So  mightily  grew  the  word  of  the  Lord  and  pre- 
vailed "  (ver.  20). 


EARLY  PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    45 

alone  at  Ephesus,  but  almost  throughout  all 
Asia  " z ;  or  whether  things  must  not  have 
gone  far  to  justify  even  a  hyperbole  like  Paul's 
that  the  gospel  had  been  "  preached  in  all 
creation  under  heaven,"  and  was  "  also  in  all 
the  world  bearing  fruit  and  increasing " 2  ; 
or,  finally,  to  furnish  a  basis  for  the  pictures 
in  the  Apocalypse  of  the  "great  multitude 
which  no  man  could  number,  out  of  every 
nation,  and  of  all  tribes  and  peoples  and 
tongues,"  which  had  "  come  out  of  the  great 
tribulation  "  ?  3 

Darkness  rests  upon  the  closing  decades 
of  the  first  century,  but  we  have  the  testimony 
from  the  early  part  of  the  next  century  of 
the  newly  recovered  Apology  of  Arts  tides, 
which  relates  how,  after  the  Lord's  Ascension, 
His  twelve  disciples  "went  forth  into  the 
known    parts   [Gr.  provinces]   of  the  world, 

1  Vers.  23-27.  2  Col.  i.  6,  23  (R.V.). 

3  Rev.  vii.  9.    Cf.  Lightfoot,  Philippians,  p.  25. 


46         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN    THE 

and  taught  concerning  His  greatness  "  * ;  and 
through  the  dim  mists  of  tradition  we  can 
descry  the  figures  of  these  Apostles  spread 
over  the  various  countries  of  the  world — in 
Parthia  and  Scythia,  on  the  bleak  shores  of 
the  Euxine,  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Arabia,  per- 
haps as  far  even  as  India — and  can  catch 
glimpses  which  show  that  the  work  of  evan- 
gelisation was  actively  going  on.2  When  the 
curtain  lifts  again  in  the  second  century,  we 
have  many  indications,  direct  and  indirect, 
of  the  immense  advances  that  had  been  made. 
I    do   not   dwell   on  what  Gibbon  calls  the 

1  Apology,  2.  The  Apology  has  usually  been 
ascribed,  after  Eusebius,  to  the  reign  of  Hadrian 
(about  a.d.  125-6) ;  but  a  second  title  in  the  Syriac 
has  led  Prof.  Rendel  Harris  and  other  scholars  to 
place  it  later,  under  Antoninus.  Mr.  Armitage 
Robinson,  however,  prefers  the  older  view  (Texts 
and  Studies,  I.  p.  75). 

2  The  best  examination  of  these  traditions  is  pro- 
bably that  of  Lipsius  in  his  article  on  "Acts  of 
Apostles  (Apocryphal),"  in  Smith  and  Wace's  Did.  of 
Christian  Biog.,  I.  pp.  17-32. 


EARLY  PROGRESS   OF    CHRISTIANITY    47 

"  splendid  exaggeration "  of  Justin  Martyr, 
who  declares :  "  For  there  is  not  one  single 
race  of  men,  whether  barbarians,  or  Greeks, 
or  whatever  they  may  be  called,  nomads,  or 
vagrants,  or  herdsmen  dwelling  in  tents, 
among  whom  prayers  and  giving  of  thanks 
are  not  offered  through  the  name  of  the 
Crucified  Jesus,"  * — though  if  one  reflects  that 
Justin  does  not  claim  that  all  the  races  or 
tribes  he  speaks  of  had  been  converted  to  the 
gospel,  or  were  even  preponderatingly  Chris- 
tian, but  only  that  the  gospel  had  reached 
them,  and  had  won  from  each  its  tribute  of 
believers,  the  exaggeration  need  not  be  so 
great  after  all — but  proceed  at  once  to  the 
examination  of  more  particular  evidence. 

1  Dial,  cum  Tryph.,  c.  117;  cf.  Gibbon,  ch.  xv. 
Mosheim  remarks,  "  There  could  have  been  no  room 
for  this  very  exaggeration,  had  not  the  Christian 
religion  at  that  time  been  most  extensively  diffused 
throughout  the  world"  {Commentaries,  I.  p.  260, 
E.T.). 


48         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

The  case  which  naturally  first  arrests  our 
attention  here  is  that  of  Asia  Minor,  in 
regard  to  an  extensive  province  of  which 
we  are  exceptionally  fortunate  in  having  the 
unimpeachable  testimony  of  Pliny,  Pro- 
consul of  Bithynia-Pontus,  in  his  famous 
letter  to  the  Emperor  Trajan  (A.D.  112). 
This  letter  of  Pliny  is  a  remarkable  warning 
at  the  outset  of  the  danger  of  reliance  on 
the  mere  argument  from  silence ;  for,  but 
for  its  existence,  it  is  certain  that  the  actual 
state  of  the  case  in  this  province  would  not 
have  been  known  to  us,  and  could  hardly 
have   been    conjectured   or    believed.1     Had 

1  "  Tertullian  derived  his  knowledge  of  it  from  the 
correspondence  of  Pliny  and  Trajan  ;  Eusebius  from 
Tertullian  ;  later  Christian  writers  from  Tertullian 
and  Eusebius,  one  or  both.  The  correspondence  of 
a  heathen  writer  is  thus  the  sole  ultimate  chronicle 
of  this  important  chapter  in  the  sufferings  of  the 
Early  Church "  (Lightfoot,  Ignatius,  I.  p.  18 ;  cf. 
Ramsay,  Church  in  Roman  Empire,  pp.  146,  196). 
Ramsay  mentions  that  the  text  of  the  letter  depends 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    49 

any  Christian  writer,  eg.,  chosen  to  put  it  on 
record  that  at  this  early  date  in  the  second 
century  the  Christian  religion  was  already 
professed  by  "  many  of  all  ages  and  ranks, 
and  of  both  sexes "  {inulti  omnis  cztatis, 
omnis  ordinis,  utriusque  sexus  etiam)  through- 
out this  extensive  region ;  that  the  move- 
ment was  "not  confined  to  the  cities,  but 
had  spread  into  the  villages  and  country" 
(neque  enim  civitates  tantum,  sed  vicos 
etiam  atque  agros) ;  that  the  temples  of 
the  heathen  were  "  almost  deserted "  (prope 
jam  desolata  templa)  ;  that  the  "  sacred 
rites "  were  "  interrupted "  (solemnia  inter- 
missd) ;  that  the  victims  for  sacrifice  could 
find  "  very  few  purchasers  "  {rarissimus  auctor 
inveniebahir) ;  and  that  this  had  been  going 
on  for  a  long  time  (dm),  I  fancy  we  should 
have   been   disposed   to   accuse   him,  as   we 

on  a  single  manuscript,  found  in  1500,  used  in  1508, 
and  never  since  seen  or  known. 


50         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

do  Justin  and  Tertullian,  of  rhetorical 
exaggeration.1  It  is  different  when  these 
statements  appear  in  a  cool  official  docu- 
ment, written  expressly  to  obtain  guidance 
in  the  discharge  of  proconsular  duty.  What 
makes  the  testimony  of  Pliny  the  more 
valuable  is  the  wide  extent  of  territory  to 
which  his  witness  applies.  From  recent 
authorities2  we  learn  that  the  region  over 
which  Pliny's  jurisdiction  extended  stretched 
far  to  the  east;  that  it  included  the  district 
known  as  Pontus,  and  had  in  fact  for  its 
correct  designation  the  Province  of  Bithynia 
and  Pontus ;  and  that  Pliny  was  probably 
in  the  east  or  Pontic  part  of  it  when  he 
wrote  to  Trajan.  His  description,  there- 
fore, will  include  Pontus  as  well  as  other 
parts  of  the  province.     This  is  corroborated 

1  The  text  of  the  letter  may  be  seen  in  Lightfoot's 
Ignatius,  and  in  works  on  Church  History  generally. 

-  Mommsen,  quoted  by  Ramsay,  p.  224  ;  Light- 
foot's  Ignatius,  p.  56. 


EARLY  PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY    51 

by  Lucian,  the  friend  of  Celsus,  who,  writing 
after  the  middle  of  the  century,  makes  his 
hero,  Alexander  of  Abonotichus,  describe 
his  native  country,  Pontus,  as  "filled  with 
Epicureans  and  Christians."  *  We  have  be- 
sides numerous  notices  of  the  Churches  of 
Pontus  in  Eusebius.2  Yet  Bithynia  and 
Pontus,  though  already  possessing  Christian 
communities  when  Peter  wrote  his  First 
Epistle,  were  not  among  the  parts  of  Asia 
Minor  favoured  with  Paul's  labours.  In 
this  connection  we  come  on  another  interest- 
ing fact — important,  as  again  warning  us 
against  drawing  wide  inferences  from  frag- 
mentary data  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
progress  of  Christianity.  Here  in  the  second 
century  we  have  indubitable  evidence  that 
Pontus  was  swarming  with  Christians.     Yet 

1  Lucian,  Alex.,  c.  25.     Quoted  by  Gibbon,  Mos- 
heim,  Schultze,  &c. 

2  Bk.  iv.  15,  23';  v.  16,  23  ;  viii.  12,  &c. 


52         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

in  the  biography  of  Gregory  Thaumaturgus, 
Origen's  pupil,  written  by  his  namesake, 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  —  a  century  after  his 
death  it  is  true,  and  with  many  fabulous 
adornments — it  is  told  that  when  Gregory 
was  made  Bishop  of  Neo-Caesarea,  in  Pontus, 
in  A.D.  240  [not  the  Pontus  of  Pliny,  but  in 
its  immediate  neighbourhood],  he  found  only 
seventeen  Christians.1  It  is  added,  by  way 
of  preserving  the  symmetry,  that  when  he 
died  he  left  only  seventeen  pagans !  The 
conversion  of  the  district  was  thus  accom- 
plished at  least  within  the  third  century. 
But  how  unsafe  it  would  be  to  argue  from 
the  alleged  paucity  of  Christians  in  A.D.  240, 
in  Pontus — which,  if  real,  must  have  been 
due  to  local  causes — to  the  general  con- 
dition of  Pontus  earlier  ! 

We  are  not  yet  done,  however,  with  Asia 
Minor.    There  is  no  reason  that  I  know  of, 
1  Migne,  xlvi.  p.  954. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    53 

beyond  the  fact  that  we  have  not  a  Pliny  to 
describe  them,  for  supposing  that  what  was 
true  of  Bithynia  and  Pontus,  was  not  true  of 
many  other  provinces  as  well.  There  is  every 
reason  for  supposing  that  some  of  these  pro- 
vinces were  even  more  favourably  situated. 
In  Phrygia,  e.g.,  the  seat  of  the  outbreak  of 
Montanism,  Christianity  must  have  been  very 
strong.  Renan  says  boldly  :  "  In  Hierapolis, 
and  many  towns  of  Phrygia,  the  Christians 
must  have  formed  the  majority  of  the  popula- 
tion." l    The  recent  discovery  of  the  singularly 

1  Marc-Aurele,  p.  449;  so  in  his  Saint  Paul  (chap, 
xiii.),  "  Phrygia  was  thenceforward,  and  remained 
for  300  years,  a  Christian  country."  Cf.  Ramsay, 
Church  in  Roman  Empire,  pp.  146-7.  Renan  mentions 
that  from  the  time  of  Septimus  Severus,  Apameia, 
of  Phrygia,  put  on  its  coins  a  Biblical  emblem, 
Noah's  Ark.  Prof.  Ramsay  takes  this  to  be  Jewish 
(Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  II.  p.  670).  This 
last-named  work  of  Prof.  Ramsay's  contains  much 
new  matter  and  evidence  from  inscriptions  on  the 
power  of  Christianity  in  certain  districts  of  Phrygia. 
(See  specially  vol.  ii.,  chaps,  xii.  and  xvii.)    "  To  judge 


54         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

interesting  epitaph  of  Abercius,  of  Hierapolis,1 
identified  with  the  Avircius  Marcellus,  known 
to  us  from  Eusebius  as  a  prominent  opponent 
of  Montanism,2  sheds  light  on  the  presence 
of  Christianity  in  the  Phrygian  Pentapolis. 
Western  Asia,  with  its  historical  churches, 
and  traditions  of  St.  John,  would  not  be  far 

from  the  proportion  of  epitaphs,  the  population  of 
Eumeneia  in  the  third  century  was  in  great  part 
Christian.  .  .  .  These  facts  show  that  Eumeneia  was 
to  a  large  extent  a  Christian  city  during  the  third 
century.  ...  It  is  clear  that,  for  some  reason,  Chris- 
tianity spread  to  quite  an  extraordinary  extent  in 
Eumeneia  and  Apameia"  (pp.  502,  511). 

1  Cf.  Lightfoot,  Ignatius,  I.  pp.  447-86,  and  Prof. 
Ramsay  (to  whom  belongs  the  chief  merit  of  this 
discovery)  in  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  II., 
chap.  xvii.  "All  that  is  known  of  the  history  of 
the  Pentapolis,"  he  says,  "centres  round  the  name 
of  Avircius  Marcellus.  He  is  presented  to  us  as 
the  most  prominent  Church  leader  in  a  district 
already  permeated  with  Christian  influence,  and  the 
chief  figure  in  the  resistance  to  Montanism  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  second  century.  .  .  .  That  the 
Pentapolis  was  Christianised  very  early  is  plain  from 
the  facts  above  stated"  (pp.  709,  715). 

2  Ecc.  Hist,  v.  16. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF    CHRISTIANITY    55 

behind.1  I  do  not  touch  on  the  vexed 
question  of  North  or  South  Galatia — though 
renewed  study  has  failed  to  reconcile  me  to 
what  I  conceive  to  be  the  superior  impro- 
babilities of  the  hypothesis  to  which  Prof. 
Ramsay  has  lent  his    powerful  advocacy2 — 

1  Cf .  Lightfoot's  essay  on  "  The  Later  School  of 
St.  John,"  in  Essays  on  Super.  Religion.  The  Epistles 
of  Ignatius,  and  scenes  like  the  Martyrdom  of 
Polycarp,  are  in  evidence  here  to  the  existence  of 
numerous  and  well-organised  Christian  churches. 

2  Prof.  Ramsay  lays,  perhaps,  too  much  stress  on 
the  ignorance  of  Greek  in  North  Galatia,  and  on  the 
suppression  of  the  Phrygian  element  in  the  popula- 
tion (e.g.,  Church  in  Roman  Empire,  pp.  79,  82,  99). 
Mommsen  does  not  take  so  strong  a  view.  A  good 
portion  of  the  inhabitants,  he  says,  "must  have 
descended  from  the  older  Phrygian  inhabitants  of 
these  regions.  Of  still  more  weight  is  the  fact  that 
the  zealous  worship  of  the  gods  in  Galatia  and  the 
priesthood  there  have  nothing  in  common  with  the 
ritual  institutions  of  the  European  Celts  ;  not  merely 
was  the  Great  Mother,  whose  sacred  symbol  the 
Romans  of  Hannibal's  time  asked  and  received  from 
the  Tolistobogi,  of  a  Phrygian  type,  but  her  priests 
belonged  in  part  at  least  to  the  Galatian  nobility 
['  Phrygo-Galatic,'  surely.]  ...  As  the   language  of 


56         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

but  in  any  case  Ancyra,  in  Galatia,  was  a 
prominent  Church  in  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,1  and  the  gospel  was,  no  doubt, 
diffused  through  the  province  then  as  else- 
where. In  Cappadocia  there  was  from  early 
times  a  powerful  Christian  community.  V. 
Schultze  finds  in  the  fourth  century  "  the 
power  of  heathenism  longer  broken  "  in  that 
province,  "  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world," 
and  "  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  "  of  the 
chief  city  Christian.2    At  the  Council  of  Nice, 

conversation,  the  Celtic  maintained  its  grounds  with 
tenacity  also  in  Asia,  yet  the  Greek  gradually  gained 
the  upper  hand,"  &c.  (Provinces  of  Roman  Empire, 

I.  p.  341).  The  topographical  difficulties  may  be 
great,  but,  in  our  ignorance  of  the  whole  circum- 
stances, can  hardly  be  said  to  be  insuperable,  and 
they  are  not  all  on  one  side.  Prof.  Ramsay's  own 
pages  show  how  precarious  it  is  to  argue  from 
absence  or  paucity  of  inscriptions  (Cities and  Bishoprics, 

II.  pp.  484, 491,  499-502,  &c).  The  rival  probabilities, 
however,  cannot  be  discussed  here. 

1  Eus.  v.  16. 

-  Untergang  des  Heid.,  II.  p.  315.   See  the  numerous 
references  in  Eusebius. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    57 

in  325,  the  bishops  of  Asia  Minor  formed 
about  a  third  of  the  total  number.1 
Compare  now  these  facts  with  Schultze's 
own  estimate  that  the  Christians  in  Asia 
Minor  in  Constantine's  time  may  have 
amounted  to  1,000,000,  out  of  a  total 
population  of  19,000,000,2  or  about  one- 
nineteenth  part,  and  it  will  probably  be  felt 
that  the  estimate  is  altogether  inadequate. 
The  proportion  may  more  reasonably  be 
assumed  to  be  not  dissimilar  to  that  we 
have  already  met  with  in  Rome. 

It  may  be  held,  however,  that  Asia  Minor 
is  an  exceptionally  favourable  case  for  our 
argument,   and    this    may  well   be   so.     Our 

1  Cf.  the  list  in  Schultze,  II.  pp.  305-7.  It  may  be 
noted  that  five  bishops  are  named  from  churches 
in  (North)  Galatia,  and  seven  from  Pamphylia  (with 
Lycia) — another  region  of  which  we  are  apt  to  infer 
from  silence  that  it  had  no  church-life  of  importance. 

2  I.  p.  18.  Of  course  this  is  a  minimum,  and 
Schultze's  important  qualifications  have  to  be 
remembered. 


58         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

knowledge  of  the  state  and  progress  of  the 
Church  during  the  greater  part  of  the  second 
century  is  exceedingly  fragmentary ;  yet 
putting  together  the  pieces  of  evidence  which 
we  possess — the  numerous  references,  e.g.,  to 
a  chronic  state  of  persecution  in  Justin  and 
other  Apologists  J ;  the  rise  of  Apology  itself, 
as  bearing  witness  to  the  growing  importance 
i  of  the  Church,  and  its  entrance  into  literary 
circles  2  ;  the  edicts  and  rescripts  of  emperors 
on  the  treatment  of  the  Christians,  some  of 
them  embracing  a  wide  area  3 ;  the  extra- 
ordinarily rapid  development  and  propaga- 
tion   of    Gnostic    errors  —  multiplying,    as 

1  See  references  in  Lightfoot,  Ignatius,  I.  pp.518  ff. 

2  On  this  and  the  rise  of  Gnosticism,  see  Lecture  III. 

3  Those  of  Hadrian,  Antoninus,  and  M.  Aurelius  ; 
cf.  Lightfoot,  Ignatius,  I.  pp.  461  ff.  The  passage 
from  Melito  (Eus.  iv.  26)  on  letters  of  Antoninus  to 
the  cities  forbidding  them  to  take  any  new  measures 
against  the  Christians,  "among  the  rest  to  the 
Larissaeans,  to  the  Thessalonians,  to  the  Athenians, 
and  to  all  the  Greeks,"  deserves  special  notice. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    59 

Irenaeus  says,  like  mushrooms  out  of  the 
ground  *  ;  the  vivid  light-flashes  which 
illuminate  such  martyr-scenes  as  those  of 
Ignatius  of  Antioch,  of  the  venerable  Poly- 
carp  of  Smyrna,  of  Justin  and  his  com- 
panions at  Rome,  of  the  Martyrs  of  Vienne 
and  Lyons,2  and  serve  to  reveal  how  much 
there  is  to  see  if  only  we  had  light  enough 
to  see  it — piecing  these  notices  together,  we 
may  find  good  reason  for  believing  that, 
with  the  exception  of  outlying  regions  like 
those  of  Gaul  and  Germany,  the  state  of 
matters  in  the  other  parts  of  the  Roman 
world  was  not  essentially  different  from 
what  we  have  already  found.  Celsus  dreads 
the  growing  numbers  of  the  Christians,  and 
writes  an  elaborate  book  to  ridicule  and 
refute  them  3  ;    and  Eusebius,   looking   back 

1  Ad.  Hcur.,  bk.  i.  29. 

2  Cf.  Eus.  iii.  36  ;  iv.  15, 16  ;  v.  1  ;  and  cf.  Lightfoot 
on  incidents. 

3  Cf.  Uhlhorn's  Conflict  of  Christianity  (E.T.),  p.  279 ; 
and  see  Lecture  III. 


60         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

upon  the  period,    speaks   of  Christianity  as 
\  spreading   at    this    time    so    as    to   embrace 
the   whole   human    race.1 

I  do  not  wait  on  these  general  con- 
siderations, but  pass  to  the  close  of  the 
second  century,  when  light  fully  returns  to 
us,  and  we  are  able  to  see  how  immense  a 
progress  has  been  made.  We  are  now  in 
the  age  of  the  Old  Catholic  Fathers,  and  find 
ourselves  confronted  with  a  great  and  firmly- 
organised  Church,  claiming  to  be  "  Catholic 
and  Apostolic,"  spread  throughout  the  chief 
provinces  of  the  Empire,  and  waging  a 
victorious  conflict  with  Gnosticism  and 
Montanism  on  the  one  side,  and  Paganism 
on  the  other.  Now  for  the  first  time  the 
important  Churches  of  Carthage  and  Alex- 
andria come  fully  into  view.  Only  now,  as 
formerly  observed,  do  we  gain  a  hint  of  the 
existence  of  a  Church  in  the  former  of  these 
1  Eus.  iv.  7. 


EARLY  PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    61 

cities.  It  is  as  when  a  traveller,  at  a  sharp 
turning  of  his  road,  suddenly  finds  himself 
in  presence  of  a  busy  and  populous  city,  the 
very  name  of  which  had  previously  been 
unknown  to  him.  Yet  both  Churches  are 
discovered  to  be  already  of  long  standing ; 
both  are  wealthy  and  numerically  prosperous ; 
both  have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  greater 
persecutions  ;  in  both  the  crowds  of  the 
lapsed  in  the  hour  of  trial  reveal  at  once 
the  high  social  position  of  many  of  the 
converts,  and  the  nominal  character  of  much 
of  their  profession. 

The  situation  in  Carthage  is  vividly 
depicted  for  us  in  the  pages  of  the  fiery  and 
eloquent  Tertullian.  There  is  no  longer  any 
mistaking  the  fact  that,  notwithstanding  the 
numerical  inferiority  of  the  Christians,  and 
the  severe  persecutions  by  which  it  was 
sought  to  restrain  them,  the  flowing  tide  was 
with  the  new  faith,  and  the  heathen  them- 


62         NEGLECTED    FACTORS   IN   THE 

selves  were  profoundly  alarmed  at  its  progress. 
"  Men  cry  out,"  says  the  Apologist,  "  that  the 
State  is  besieged ;  the  Christians  are  in  the 
fields,  in  the  forts,  in  the  islands  ;  they  mourn, 
as  for  a  loss,  that  every  sex,  age,  condition, 
and  even  rank,  is  going  over  to  this  sect " J ; 
and  he  tells  us,  in  language  resembling 
Pliny's,  "  the  temple  revenues  are  every  day 
falling  off;  how  few  now  throw  in  a  con- 
tribution." 2  This  is  rhetoric,  no  doubt,  but 
we  do  not  feel  it  necessary  to  set  it  aside 
wholly  as  the  language  of  exaggeration.  It 
is  only  what  the  facts  before  us  would  lead 
us  to  expect.  In  his  address  to  the  Proconsul 
Scapula  in  deprecation  of  the  persecutions 
of  the  Christians — to  a  man,  therefore,  who 
must  have  been  able  to  detect  any  extrava- 
gant exaggeration — Tertullian  asserts  boldly, 
"  Though  our  numbers  are  so  great — con- 
stituting all  but  a  majority  in  every  city  {pars 
1  Apol.  i.  2  C.  42. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    63 

pene  major  civitatis  cujusque) — we  conduct 
ourselves  in  quietness  and  modesty  " 1  ;  and 
says  again  that  if  the  Christians  in  Carthage 
were  to  present  themselves  in  a  body  before 
his  tribunal,  he  would  have  to  decimate  the 
city  to  make  an  example  of  them.2  Ter- 
tullian,  we  allow  again,  was  a  rhetorician, 
but  there  was  at  least  some  method  in  his 
rhetoric,  and  it  would  plainly  have  defeated 
the  very  end  he  had  in  view  had  he  addressed 
an  appeal  to  a  proconsul,  intended  to  influence 
his  action,  which  was  on  the  face  of  it 
monstrously  and  even  ludicrously  at  variance 
with  the  facts.     It  is  in  the  light  of  state- 

1  Ad.  Scap.  2. 

-  C.  5.  If  one  wishes  to  press  the  "decimate" 
of  the  rhetorician,  as  implying  that  the  numbers 
whom  he  had  just  described  as  "all  but  a  majority 
in  every  city,"  constituted  literally  and  exactly  one- 
tenth,  it  may  be  observed  that  it  is  only  the  adult 
part  of  the  community  that  would  figure  in  such 
a  scene  as  this,  and  all  need  not  be  conceived  of  as 
massacred. 


64  NEGLECTED  FACTORS   IN    THE 

merits  like  these,  where  a  certain  caution — 
not  to  say  verisimilitude — must  have  been 
employed,  that  we  must  judge  of  his  other 
celebrated  outburst  in  the  Apology,  "We 
are  but  of  yesterday,  and  yet  we  have  filled 
every  place  belonging  to  you — cities,  islands, 
castles,  towns,  assemblies,  your  very  camps, 
your  tribes,  companies,  palace,  senate,  forum 
— we  leave  you  your  temples  only."1  Neu- 
mann justly  remarks  that,  to  prove  effective, 
such  statements  must  have  been  able  to 
attach  themselves  to  known  facts.2     It  is  a 

1  c.  37. 

2  Dcr  Romisclie  Staat,  p.  121.  So  Hasenclever,  in 
his  able  articles  on  the  social  rank  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians in  Jahr.f.  Prot.  Theol.,vm.,  speaks  of  Tertullian's 
rhetorical  exaggeration  as  "essentially  agreeable  to 
the  fact "  (p.  36).  There  is  more  reason  for  supposing 
that  Tertullian  gives  wings  to  his  imagination  in  his 
enumeration  of  the  various  nations  that  had  received 
the  gospel  {Ad.  Jud.  7) ;  but  even  this  passage  is 
only  an  expansion  of  similar  statements  in  Justin  and 
Irenasus.  The  latter  Father  speaks  of  the  Church  in 
his  day  as  "dispersed  throughout  the  whole  world, 
even  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,"  and  enumerates  the 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    65 

very  moderate  interpretation,  I  think,  to  put 
upon  them  to  say  that  the  Christians  by  the 
end  of  the  second  century  must  have  formed 
one-fifth  or  one-sixth  of  the  population  of 
the  North  African  cities,  and  perhaps  one- 
tenth  of  the  whole  province.  Schultze,  on 
the  other  hand,  computes  as  a  minimum  only 
50,000  out  of  a  population  of  half  a  million 
in  the  city,  or  one-tenth,  and  a  total  of 
100,000  in  the  province,  or  about  1  per 
cent. ! 1  A  totally  inadequate  estimate,  as 
it  seems  to  me.  But  if  this  region  had  one- 
tenth  of  a  Christian  population  at  the  end  of 
the  second  century,  the  proportion  must  have 
been  vastly  greater  by  the  end  of  the  third 
century,  after  the  long  period  of  peace,  during 
which,  as  we  know  from  Eusebius,2  the  Church 
was    progressing    by   "  leaps    and    bounds." 

Churches  in  Germany,  Spain,  Gaul,  in  the  East,  in 
Egypt,  in  Libya,  &c,  as  agreeing  in  the  symbol  of 
the  faith  (Adv.  Hccr.  i.  7). 
1  Untergang,  p.  4.  2  VIII.  1. 

5 


66        NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

This  is  borne  out  by  the  glimpses  we  get 
of  the  affluence  of  the  Church  in  the  times 
of  Cyprian  and  Constantine ;  by  the  very 
magnitude  and  importance  of  its  schisms — 
notably  the  Donatist ;  and  by  the  extra- 
ordinary number  of  its  bishops.1 

The  situation  was  not  widely  different  in 
Alexandria.  From  the  appearance  of  the 
developed  Gnosticism  of  Basilides  and 
Valentinus  in  the  early  part  of  the  century, 
we  know  that  Christianity  must  early  have 
taken  hold  upon  this  famous  city — as  motley 
in  its  habits  of  thought  as  in  its  population  ; 
and  we  have  an  incidental  corroboration  of 
this  in  a  curious  letter  of  the  versatile 
Emperor  Hadrian,  whose  satiric  strain  throws 
an  interesting  light  on  the  strangely  mixed 
state   of  affairs  which   prevailed.      "  I   have 

1  In  the  year  330  the  Donatists  alone  could  bring 
together  a  Synod  of  270  bishops.  See  further  on  the 
Church  of  Carthage  in  LecL  II. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    67 

found  the  people,"  he  says,  "  vain,  fickle,  and 
shifting,  with  every  breath  of  opinion.  Those 
who  worship  Serapis  are  in  fact  Christians, 
and  they  who  call  themselves  Christian 
bishops  are  actually  worshippers  of  Serapis. 
.  .  .  The  patriarch  himself,  when  he  comes 
to  Egypt,  is  compelled  by  one  party  to 
worship  Serapis,  by  the  other  Christ." l 
Here  is  already  a  very  marked  diffusion  of 
Christianity  in  Alexandria  in  the  first  quarter 
of  the  second  century,  and  a  corresponding 
interest  of  the  emperors  in  it.  While  naming 
Hadrian,  I  may  simply  quote  for  what  it  is 
worth  the  remarkable  statement  made  regard- 
ing him  by  the  heathen  writer  Lampridius,  viz., 
that  he  at  one  time  contemplated  dedicating 
to  Christ  statues  without  temples  which  he 
had  caused  to  be  erected  in  every  city,  and 
was  only  deterred  by  the  consideration  "  that 

1  Letter    to    Servianus.      See    text   in    Lightfoot, 
Ignatius,  I.  p.  464. 


68  NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  temples  of  the  old  gods  would  become 
deserted,  and  all  the  people  would  become 
Christian  "  (pmnes  Christianos  futuros) . l  Even 
if  erroneous,  the  statement  is  a  striking 
testimony  to  the  impression  which  Chris- 
tianity must  have  produced  on  the  Hadrianic 
age. 

The  position  of  the  Church  in  Alexandria 
was  greatly  strengthened  by  the  rise  of  its 
famous  Catechetical  School.  It  is  right, 
however,  that  I  should  say  a  word  at  this 
point  on  the  testimony  of  Origen,  who,  from 
Gibbon  downwards,  has  been  cited  as  a 
counter-witness  that  the  number  of  Christians 
in  his  days  were  "  very  few."  It  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  Origen,  in  the  middle  of 
the  third  century,  should  make  any  such 
assertion,  and  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that  it 
is  forcing  his  language  to  put  this  interpreta- 

1  Lamprid.  in  Sev.  Alex.,  43  ;  cf.  Lightfoot,  Igna- 
tius, I.  p.  441  ;  Lanciani,  Pag.  and  Christ.  Rome,  p.  11. 


EARLY    PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     69 

tion  upon  it.  The  passage  in  question  is  in 
the  eighth  book  against  Celsus,  where  Origen 
is  urging  the  blessing  that  would  accrue  to 
the  Roman  Empire  if  men  universally  acted 
on  the  spirit  of  Christ's  precept,  "If  two  of 
you  shall  agree  on  earth  as  touching  any- 
thing that  they  shall  ask,"  &c.  "What 
might  we  expect,"  he  says,  "if  not  only  a 
very  few  (irdvv  oXiyoi)  agree,  as  at  present, 
but  the  whole  of  the  Empire  of  Rome  ?  " x 
It  is  plainly  unfair,  especially  in  view  of 
Origen's    own     declarations     elsewhere,2    to 

1  Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  viii.  69. 

2  In  bk.  viii.  14,  e.g.,  Origen  speaks  of  the  "  multi- 
tude" of  believers  in  the  Church.  He  cites  Celsus 
(iii.  10)  to  the  effect  that  when  the  Christians  were 
few  in  number  they  held  the  same  opinion,  but  when 
they  became  "a  great  multitude"  they  were  divided 
and  separated  ;  and  he  says  "  That  Christians  at  first 
were  few  in  number  is  undoubted,  in  comparison 
with  the  multitudes  who  subsequently  became  Chris- 
tians ;  and  yet,  all  things  considered,  they  were  not 
(even  then)  so  very  few."  (Cf.  iii.  9,  29,  and  see 
below.)  Of  course  the  numerical  inferiority  of  the 
Christians  to  the  Pagans  was  still  striking,  even  if 


70         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

strain  a  passage  like  this,  which  relates  to 
agreement  in  prayer,  into  a  statistical  decla- 
ration of  the  number  of  Christians  in  the 
Empire.  Remembering  the  distinction  be- 
tween real  and  nominal  Christianity,  we 
might  say  with  some  justice  that  even  in 
Britain  and  America  at  the  present  day 
"  very  few  "  agree.  The  truth  is  that  Origen 
is  one  of  the  most  explicit  witnesses  we 
possess  to  the  victorious  progress  which 
Christianity  was  making  in  the  Empire.  In 
that  very  eighth  book  to  which  reference  is 
made,  and  in  the  same  context,  he  expresses 
his  triumphant  confidence,  despite  of  oppres- 
sion and  persecution,  that  Christianity  is  the 
power  destined  to  overcome  every  other. 
"  Every  form  of  worship,"  he  says,  "  will  be 
destroyed  except  the  religion  of  Christ,  which 
will   alone  prevail.     And  indeed  it  will  one 

the  former  composed  one-fourth  or  one-fifth  of  the 
population  of  the  cities. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    71 

day  triumph,  as  its  principles  take  possession 
of  the  minds  of  men  more  and  more  every 
day."  x  And  repeatedly  in  the  course  of  his 
work  he  bears  witness  to  the  all-conquering 
power  of  the  truth.  "  It  proved  victorious," 
he  says,  "  as  being  the  word  of  God,  the  very 
nature  of  which  is  such  that  it  cannot  be 
hindered  ;  and  becoming  more  powerful  than 
all  such  adversaries,  it  made  itself  master  of 
the  whole  of  Greece  and  a  considerable 
portion  of  barbarian  lands,  and  converted 
countless  numbers  (myriads)  to  his  religion."2 
This  is  a  considerably  different  picture  from 

1  Bk.  viii.  68.  This,  it  has  been  remarked,  is  a 
new  idea,  remarkably  opposed  to  the  tone  of  the 
earlier  writers,  who  always  look  on  the  Roman  power 
as  hostile  and  persecuting,  an  oppression  from  which 
there  could  be  no  deliverance  except  through  the 
coming  of  the  end. 

2  Bk.  i.  27 ;  cf.  ii.  13  :  "  For  the  Word,  spoken 
with  power,  has  gained  the  mastery  over  men  of 
all  sorts  of  nature,  and  it  is  impossible  to  see  any 
race  of  men  which  has  escaped  accepting  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus";  and  iii.   24:   "He  (Celsus)  cannot 


72         NEGLECTED  FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  "  very  few,"  to  which  we  are  wont  to  be 
referred  as  Origen's  sole  testimony !  The 
most  convincing  evidence,  perhaps,  of  the 
enormous  progress  the  gospel  must  have 
made  in  Alexandria  and  similar  great  cities 
by  the  time  of  Constantine  is  the  way  in 
which,  after  the  victory  of  Christianity,  the 
conflicts  of  Christians  and  Pagans  seem  to 
sink  into  the  background,  while  the  stage  is 
filled  with  new  disputants,  Catholic  and 
Donatist,  Orthodox  and  Arian,  in  whose 
disputes  the  very  heathen  take  their  share, 
ridiculing  them  in  the  theatres,  and  discuss- 
ing them  in   the   baths,  shops,  and  streets.1 

demonstrate  that  an  unspeakable  number,  as  he 
asserts,  of  Greeks  and  Barbarians  acknowledge  the 
existence  of  iEsculapius  ;  while  we,  if  we  deem  this 
a  matter  of  importance,  can  clearly  show  a  countless 
multitude  of  Greeks  and  Barbarians  who  acknow- 
ledge the  existence  of  Jesus."    (Also  vii.  26.) 

1  Cf.  Histories  of  Socrates  (i.  6,  8  ;  ii.  2) ;  Theod., 
(i.  6),  &c.  See  passages  collected  in  Newman's  Arians, 
Note  V. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     73 

Yet  in  this  great  and  populous  city — the 
second  in  the  Empire — Schultze  will  only 
grant  a  minimum  of  some  50,000  Chris- 
tians, or  one- twelfth  of  its  600,000  inhabi- 
tants.1 Surely,  again,  an  immense  under- 
statement ! 

From  Carthage  and  Alexandria  our  eyes 
turn  to  a  third  great  centre — Antioch,  the 
gay  and  voluptuous  capital  of  Syria,  which, 
in  point  of  population  and  influence,  stood 
only  behind  Alexandria.  Apart  from  the 
list  of  its  bishops  and  other  slight  notices  in 
Eusebius,2  the  Church  of  this  city,  renowned 
in  the  earliest  age  as  the  Mother  Church  of 
Gentile  Christianity,  is  another  of  those  that 
only   come   late   into   view.     When    it   does 

1  Pp.  20-1.  He  allows  150,000  for  Egypt  and 
Libya.  On  the  opulence  of  the  Alexandrian  Church, 
see  next  lecture. 

2  These,  however,  suffice  to  show  an  important 
Church.  The  Epistles  of  Ignatius  alone  are  evidence 
of  this. 


74         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

become  distinctly  visible  in  the  middle  of 
the  third  century,  it  is  as  a  seat  of  eccle- 
siastical influence  of  the  first  rank.  The 
extraordinary  splendour  of  its  episcopate, 
and  elaboration  of  its  Church  service,  under 
the  notorious  Paul  of  Samosata  T  ;  its  influen- 
tial councils  and  important  theological 
school ;  the  magnificent  Golden  Church 
reared  later  by  the  liberality  of  Constan- 
tine 2  ;  its  prominence  in  the  Arian  contro- 
versies ;  the  utter  failure  of  Julian's  attempt 
to  restore  Paganism  in  it — readers  of  Church 
History  will  remember  his  chagrin  when, 
having  gone  to  celebrate  with  all  pomp  the 
festival  of  Apollo  at  the  Temple  of  Daphne, 
he  found  only  a  single  old  priest,  sacrificing  a 
goose  at  his  own  expense  3  ;  the  flourishing 

1  Cf.  Eus.  vii.  30. 

2  Eus.,  Life  of  Constantinc,  iii.  50 ;  Orat.  9.  "  A 
church  of  unparalleled  size  and  beauty."  Its  dedica- 
tion in  a.d.  341  was  the  occasion  of  a  Council  famous 
in  the  Arian  strife.    . 

3  Julian  himself  relates  the  incident  in  his  Misopogon. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    75 

state  of  the  Church,  numerically  at  least, 
under  Chrysostom — all  this  shows  that,  even 
before  the  change  of  the  political  relations, 
Christianity  must  have  been  practically  in 
the  ascendant  in  the  city.  "  Probably  al- 
ready (in  first  half  of  fourth  century),"  says 
V.  Schultze,  "at  all  events  soon  after,  the 
majority  and  power  were  in  the  possession  of 
the  Christians."  J  We  have  the  express  testi- 
mony of  Chrysostom  that  in  his  day  the 
Christians  were  a  majority  in  the  city  (to 
7r\£ov  rrig  7t6\eix)q  ^QiGTiaviKov) 2  ;  and  this  is 
borne  out  by  the  separate  figures  he  gives, 
showing  the  population  to  have  been  200,000,3 
and  the  number  of  the  Christian  community 
about  100,000.4     But  even  these  figures  pro- 

1  Untergang,  II.  p.  261.         ~  Adv.  Jud.  horn.,  i.  4. 

3  Horn,  in  St.  Ignat.,  4. 

«  Horn,  in  Matt.,  lxxxv.  (lxxxvi.)  4.  On  the  deba- 
table elements  in  these  figures,  see  Gibbon,  ch.  xv., 
and  V.  Schultze,  II.  p.  263.  These  writers  suppose 
that  Chrysostom  reckons  only  citizens  of  Antioch— i.e., 


76         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

bably  do  not  do  justice  to  the  strength  of 
Christianity  in  the  Syrian  capital.  In  a  vast 
city  like  Antioch,  as  in  other  great  centres, 
there  must  have  been  a  large  floating  mass 
favourably  disposed  to  Christianity,  who  yet 
never  definitely  connected  themselves  with 
the  Church.  What  it  is  still  more  important 
to  remember,  Antioch  at  this  time  was  a 
city  deeply  rent  with  schisms.  There  were, 
in  fact,  in  Chrysostom's  day,  no  fewer  than 
three  rival  parties  in  it,  two  at  least  with 
separate  organisations,  all  holding  eccle- 
siastically aloof  from  each  other — the  Catholic, 
the  Arian,  and  the  Meletian." I  It  is  an 
interesting  question   whether  in  his  100,000 

not  children  or  slaves — and  Gibbon  would  raise  the 
number  of  inhabitants  to  half  a  million.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  Chrysostom's  statements,  which  V.  Schultze 
accepts,  as  to  the  relative  proportions,  are  not  to  be 
set  aside. 

1  "The  unhappy  Church"  was  thus,  as  Mr. 
Stephens  says,  "torn  to  tatters"  (Saint  Chrysostom, 
pp.  21,  140). 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    77 

Christians  he  reckoned,  as  his  language 
would  seem  to  imply,1  only  the  frequenters 
of  his  own  cathedral,  or  the  schismatics  as 
well.  In  any  case,  we  have  his  explicit 
statement  that  the  Christian  community  in 
Antioch  outnumbered  the  Jews  and  Pagans 
combined  ;  and  this  reflects  light  back  on  the 
prosperous  condition  of  the  Church  in  the 
beginning  of  the  century.  It  is  a  natural 
but  hasty  assumption  that  the  mere  change 
in  imperial  favour  constituted  a  reason  why, 
in  such  a  city,  those  who  had  been  previously 
Pagan  should  at  once  rush  into  the  arms  of 
the  Church.  Imperial  favour  would  no  doubt 
have  its  effect,  but  the  city  did  not  change 
its  creed  at  the  bidding  of  Julian,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  it  would  have  become 

1  He  speaks  of  "  those  assembling  there "  (tovq 
ivravOa  awayofievovg),  i.e.,  at  the  church.  This  is  to  be 
borne  in  mind,  if  it  should  be  the  case  (see  above), 
that  the  200,000  in  Antioch  only  represent  the  citizen 
element  in  the  population. 


78         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Christian  at  the  bidding  of  Constantine  had 
the  public  mind  not  otherwise  been  prepared 
to  receive  the  new  faith. 

The  case  of  Antioch  just  cited  has  a  bear- 
ing on  our  subject  in  another  way ;  has,  in 
fact,  been  used  by  Gibbon  for  the  directly 
opposite  purpose  of  establishing  his  low 
estimate  of  the  numbers  of  Christians  in 
Rome  and  in  the  Empire.  Unwarrantably, 
as  I  think,  in  face  of  Chrysostom's  statements, 
reckoning  the  Christians  in  Antioch  at  one- 
fifth,  instead  of  one-half,  of  the  population,  he 
makes  this  the  basis  of  a  calculation  to  show 
that  the  proportion  elsewhere  is,  as  he  repre- 
sents it,  one-twentieth  of  the  whole.1  Two 
sets  of  data  are  combined  in  his  argument — 
one,  a  notice  in  Chrysostom  that  in  Antioch 
3,000  widows  and  virgins  were  supported  by 
the  bounty  of  the  Church  2  ;  and  the  other,  a 
statement  in  Eusebius  that  in  the  year  250 

1  Ch.  xv.  2  Horn,  in  Matt.  lxvi.  (lxvii.)  3. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    79 

A.D.,  the  clergy  of  Rome  consisted  of  a  bishop, 
46  presbyters,  7  deacons,  as  many  sub- 
deacons,  with  42  acolytes,  and  52  readers, 
exorcists,  and  porters,  while  the  number  of 
widows  and  poor  supported  by  the  Church 
was  over  1,50c1  This  small  number  of  the 
clergy,  and  the  fact  that  the  numbers  sup- 
ported by  charity  are  half  those  in  Antioch, 
with  its  Church  community  of  100,000,  are 
held  to  justify  the  inference  that  the  Church 
in  Rome  must  have  had  about  50,000  mem- 
bers. But  it  must  surely  be  felt  that  we  are 
on  very  precarious  ground  indeed  in  reason- 
ing from  a  bare  enumeration  of  the  clergy 
and  poor  to  the  strength  of  the  Christian 
community  in  Rome,  especially  when  Cor- 
nelius, the  author  of  the  above  enumeration, 
in  the  same  breath  speaks  of  "  the  very  great, 
even  innumerable  people"  (jueytorou  kol  avapiO- 
fjLi]Tov  XaoO)  whom  these  clergy  served  !     We 

1   Ecc.  Hist.  vi.  43. 


8o         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

know  far  too  little  of  the  ecclesiastical  ar- 
rangements of  the  Roman  Church — of  the 
number  of  its  parishes,  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  work  of  these  parishes  was  over- 
taken by  the  clergy,1  to  be  able  to  hazard 
even  a  guess  at  the  ratio  of  the  clergy  to  the 
body  of  the  people.  In  Antioch  itself,  where 
the  Christians  were  at  least  100,000  strong, 
we  have  no  hint  of  a  division  into  districts 
with  separate  churches  at  all ;  the  preaching, 
so  far  as  would  appear,  was  done,  chiefly  by 
Chrysostom,  at  the  one  great  cathedral.2  The 
great  church  at  Constantinople,  again,  in  the 
time  of  Justinian,  when  practically  all  were 

1  We  have  the  testimony  of  Optatus  of  Mileve  that 
there  were  forty  churches  in  Rome  before  the  last 
persecution.  Cf.  Bingham,  III.  p.  133.  But  we  have 
only  to  reflect  on  the  number  of  parochial  churches 
in  some  of  our  large  continental  cities  still — a  dozen 
or  little  more  to  an  immense  population — to  see  that 
this  is  no  index  to  the  numbers  of  the  Christian 
following. 

2  Mr.  Stephen  points  this  out  in  his  Saint  Chrysostom, 
p.  108. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    81 

nominally  Christian,  was  served,  as  we  learn 
from  Gibbon  himself,1  by  but  sixty  presbyters. 
It  is  at  least  equally  precarious  to  reason  from 
the  numbers  of  widows  and  poor  in  one  com- 
munity to  those  in  another,  without  knowing 
the  precise  circumstances  of  each  and  their 
respective  modes  of  administering  help.  But 
apart  from  all  other  considerations,  the  Cata- 
comb discoveries  already  adverted  to  seem 
to  demonstrate  the  baselessness  of  Gibbon's 
calculations. 

Our  materials  are  scantier,  when  from  these 
large  and  flourishing  churches  of  the  East, 
we  turn  to  the  West,  and  inquire  concern- 
ing the  progress  of  the  gospel  in  Gaul  and 
Spain.  The  origin  of  the  Church  in  Gaul  is 
wrapped  in  obscurity,  and  we  need  not  seek 
to  penetrate  the  mists  of  legend  which  en- 
shroud it.  The  first  real  glimpse  we  get  of  it 
is  in  the  beautiful  and  pathetic  narrative  of 

1  Ch.  xx.,  footnote  to  No.  2,  on  Clergy, 
6 


82         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  martyrdoms  at  Vienne  and  Lyons,  under 
Marcus  Aurelius,  in  the  year  177  A.D.1  We 
have  only  to  think,  however,  of  what  that 
single  glimpse  reveals,  to  be  satisfied  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  which  is  like 
leaven,  was  silently  and  secretly  diffusing 
itself  in  Gaul,  as  everywhere  else.  Dean 
Milman  speaks  too  sanguinely,  perhaps, 
when  he  says  of  this  reign  of  Marcus, 
"  The  western  provinces,  Gaul  and  Africa, 
rivalled  the  East  in  the  number,  if  not  in 
the  opulence  of  their  Christian  congrega- 
tions. In  almost  every  city  had  gradually 
arisen  a  separate  community,"2  but  we  may 
safely  conclude  that  our  temptation  is  to 
minimise,  rather  than  to  magnify,  what  had 
actually  been  accomplished.  The  Church  at 
Lyons,  at  the  head  of  which  Irenaeus  now 
takes  his  place  as  bishop,  shows  how  Chris- 
tianity had  established  itself  at  a  point  of 
1  Eus.  v.  1.,  2.  -  Hist,  of  Christ.,  bk.  ii.  ch.  7. 


vantage,  the  value  of  which,  for  purposes  of 
aggression,  can  hardly  be  over-estimated. 
Only  when,  with  the  aid  of  a  description  like 
Renan's,1  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  super- 
lative importance  of  Lyons  as  a  political 
religious,  and  commercial  centre,  and  realise 
its  geographical  advantage  as  situated  at  the 
junction  of  the  Rhone  and  the  Saone,  do  we 
appreciate  how  much  was  secured  by  the 
gospel  having  attained,  even  at  the  cost  of 
fearful  sufferings,  a  firm  footing  in  its  midst. 
Neither  does  it  follow  that,  because  Chris- 
tianity was  late  in  taking  root  in  Gaul,  its 
progress,  once  it  had  established  itself,  was 
not  as  rapid  there  as  elsewhere.2  Unfor- 
tunately, our  means  of  information  are  so 
slight  that  we  are  unable  to  trace  its 
advances   in   detail.     We  have   a   rhetorical 

1  Marc-Aurele,  ch.  xix.     Cf.  Schultze,  JJntergang,  II. 
pp.  110-12  :  "The  capital  of  the  Three  Gauls." 

2  The  culture  conditions  were  exceptionally  favour- 
able.    Cf.  Schultze,  II.  p.  ioi. 


84         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

allusion  in  Tertullian  J ;  we  glean  scattered 
hints  of  congregations  in  the  third  century  ; 
we  find  Constantius  and  Constantine  protect- 
ing the  Christians  in  Gaul  in  the  Diocletian 
persecution2;  we  have  the  important  Synod  in 
Aries  in  314  A.D.,  another  Church  coming 
suddenly  into  view  3 ;  we  have  notices  thus 
early  of  numerous  bishoprics  4 ;  while  by  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century  we  find  an  epis- 
copal organisation  in  all  the  provinces  of  the 
country.*  But  the  best  proof  of  all  of  the 
rapid  march  of  the  gospel  to  victory  is  the 
fact  which  Schultze  emphasises,  of  the  com- 
plete overthrow  of  the  classical  Paganism  in 
the  cities  throughout  all  Gaul  in  the  course  of 


1  Adv.  Jud.  7. 

-  Eus.,  Life  of  Constantine,  i.  8,  15,  16,  &c. 

3  Cf.  Hefele,  II.  pp.  180  ff.  (E.  T.)  "The  Synod  of 
Aries,"  says  Schultze,  "  shows  that  Christianity  had 
gone  deep  into  the  community"  (II.  p.  13). 

4  Schultze,  Untergang,  I.  p.  12. 

5  Ibid.  II.  p.  103. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    85 

the  fourth  century.1     How  this  victory  was 

brought  about  we  can  only  imperfectly  discern 

in  the  labours  of  such  outstanding  individuals 

as  Hilary  of  Poitiers  and   Martin  of  Tours, 

but  the  decisiveness  and  completeness  of  the 

transition   is  as  remarkable   as   anything    in 

history. 

If,  in  this  paucity  of  evidence,  it  be  thought 

that   we   assume   too  much   in  supposing  a 

silent    but   steady    progress   of    the    gospel 

through  Gaul   in  the  third   century,  an  apt 

instance    to    rebuke    our    scepticism    comes 

from    the    neighbouring    Church   of    Spain. 

The   early  history  of  the    Church  in  Spain 

is   even   more   completely   hidden    from    us 

than  that  of  the  Church  in  Gaul.     The  sum- 

1  Untergang,  II.  pp.  103,  1 13-14,  &c.  The  Celtic 
heathenism  lingered  longer,  though  also  in  the 
main  overcome.  Mommsen  (quoted  by  Schultze, 
II.  p.  116)  says,  "  More  rapidly  still  than  the  (Celtic) 
native  speech,  the  native  religion  lost  ground,  and 
Christianity,  pressing  in,  found  in  it  scarcely  any 
opposition." 


86         NEGLECTED  FACTORS  IN   THE 

total  of  our  knowledge  of  it  during  the  first 
three  centuries  is  comprised  in  casual  allu- 
sions in  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian,1  and  in  an 
Epistle  of  Cyprian  which  relates  to  the 
deposition  of  two  Spanish  bishops.2  The 
curtain  lifts,  as  usual  suddenly,  at  the  Council 
of  Elvira,  A.D.  305  or  306 — a  Council  whose 
81  Canons  still  remain  to  us.3  And  what  do 
we  find  then  ?  A  Church  long  rooted  in  the 
land,  with  splendid  basilicas,  reckoning  in  its 
membership  great  landowners,  and  numerous 
magistrates,  and  high  civic  dignitaries,  while 
an  eagerness  is  shown  on  the  part  of  all 
sections  of  the  community — including  those 
whose   occupations  are  most  questionable — 

1  Iren.  i.  10 ;  Tert.  Adv.  Jud.  7. 

2  Epistle  67.  The  Epistle  is,  however,  of  import- 
ance as  showing  the  sufferings  of  the  Spanish  Church 
in  the  Decian  Persecution. 

3  See  in  Hefele,  I.  pp.  180  ff.  The  Council  of 
Elvira,  with  its  19  bishops  and  24  presbyters,  is  only 
to  be  regarded  as  representing  the  South  of  Spain. 
Cf.  Schultze,  I.  p.  5. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    87 

to  be  received  into  its  communion.  Hosius, 
the  Bishop  of  Cordova,  was  the  trusted  adviser 
of  Constantine,  and  a  leading  figure  in  the 
Nicene  Council. 

This  brings  us  to  the  final  struggle — the 
persecution  inaugurated  by  Diocletian — from 
the  midst  of  which  come  some  remarkable 
testimonies,  with  the  mention  of  which  I  may 
fitly  conclude  this  portion  of  the  argument. 
The  Church  had  been  at  peace  for  forty 
years,  and  its  progress  during  that  period 
had  been  extraordinarily  rapid.  "  Who  could 
describe,"  says  Eusebius,  "those  vast  col- 
lections of  men  that  flocked  to  the  religion 
of  Christ,  and  those  multitudes  crowding  in 
from  every  city,  and  the  illustrious  concourse 
in  the  houses  of  worship  ?"  *  Then  the  perse- 
cution burst,  sifting  the  ranks  of  the  Church, 
and  scattering  nominal  professors  before  it,  as 
a  storm  breaking  through  a  forest  makes  the 
1  Ecc.  Hist.,  viii.  1  ;  Cf .  Lect.  III. 


88         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

leaves  fly  in  every  direction.  The  incidents 
of  the  persecution  —  which  we  do  not  stay 
to  describe — and  other  notices  of  the  time, 
show  how  widely  Christianity  must  have 
been  spread.  We  read,  for  example,  of  a 
town  in  Phrygia  burned  with  all  its  popula- 
tion, including  women  and  children,  because 
the  inhabitants,  those  in  high  rank  as  well 
as  persons  of  humbler  station,  confessed 
themselves  Christians, and  would  not  recant!1 
We  should  notice  also  the  case  of  Armenia, 
which  at  this  time  received  the  gospel  from 
Gregory  the  Illuminator,  and  that  so  de- 
cidedly that  probably  two  -  thirds  of  the 
people  may  be  reckoned  as  professing  Chris- 
tianity.2 Incidentally,  we  get  a  glimpse  of 
the  predominance  of  Christianity  in  Rome 
in  the  fact,  narrated  by  Eusebius,  that 
Maxentius,  the  usurper  of  imperial  power 
in  Italy  during  the  persecution,  sought 
1  Ecc.  Hist.,  viii.  n.  '  Cf.  Schultzc,  I.  p.  17. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    89 

to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  Romans  by 
pretending  that  he  was  of  the  Christian  faith. 
"  He  pretended,"  says  the  historian,  "  by  a 
species  of  accommodation  and  flattery  to- 
wards the  Romans,  that  he  was  of  our 
faith."1  But  there  are  yet  more  striking 
testimonies.  The_  complete  failure  of  the  / 
persecution  may  be  said  to  be  itself  such 
a  testimony,  as,  indeed,  the  persecutors  them- 
selves, in  their  edicts  and  rescripts  of  tolera- 
tion, acknowledge.2  Maximin,  Emperor  of 
the  East,  was  the  most  obstinate  and  cruel, 
perhaps,  of  all  these  persecutors.  And  what 
does  he  say  ?  In  an  Epistle  to  his  governors 
ordering  the  persecution  to  cease,  he  gives 
as  the  reason  why  it  had  been  under- 
taken actually  this — that  the  emperors  "had 
seen  that  almost  all  men  {ay^ov  a.7ravTag 
avOpwirovg)  were  abandoning  the  worship  of 
the  gods,  and  attaching  themselves  to  the  party 
1  Eus.  viii.  14.  s  Ibid.  viii.  16,  17  ;  ix.  9. 


go         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

(Wvei)  of  the  Christians!' »  Rhetoric  may  be 
charged  against  Tertullian,  but  a  procla- 
mation of  this  kind  is  hardly  one  in  which 
we  should  look  for  rhetorical  exaggeration  ! 
The  only  other  testimony  I  shall  adduce  is 
one  from  the  Christian  side.  It  is  that  of 
the  famous  Lucian  of  Antioch,  teacher  of 
Arius,  and  founder  of  the  school  usually 
known  as  the  Antiochian,  who  perished  in  the 
persecution.  And  the  words  of  Lucian  are 
that,  prior  to  the  last  persecution,  "almost 
the  greater  part  of  the  world,  including 
whole  cities,  had  yielded  obedience  to  the 
truth "  ("  pars  paene  mundi  jam  major 
huic  veritati  adstipulatur  ;  urbes  integral  ").2 
These    are    utterances    from    the    midst    of 

1  Eus.  ix.  9. 

2  The  passage  is  only  in  the  Latin  translation  of 
Eusebius  by  Rufinus,  but  Dr.  Milman  thinks  it 
authentic ;  cf.  Hist,  of  Christ.,  Bk.  hi.,  ch.  i.  He 
quotes  also  a  note  from  Routh,  who  gives  on  the 
authority  of  Porson  a  statement  from  Porphyry, 
that  the  Christians  were  tovq  irXuovag — a  majority. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY    91 

the  conflict,  not  easily  to  be  explained 
away  by  those  who  would  persuade  us 
that  the  Christians  constituted  only  an 
insignificant  one-twentieth,  or  even  one-tenth 
of  the  population,  at  the  time  of  the  victory  ; 
and  they  surely  warrant  us  in  holding  that 
there  has  been  an  undue  timidity  in  recog- 
nising the  powerful  hold  which  Christianity 
had  taken,  numerically,  on  society  by  the  end 
of  the  third  century.  If  we  allow  the  simple 
facts  of  the  case  to  produce  their  natural 
impression  on  our  minds  our  verdict,  I  think, 
must  be — there  are  factors  here  which  have 
been  neglected. 


THE     EXTENSION     OF  CHRISTIANITY 

VERTICALLY,     OR  AS      RESPECTS 

THE       DIFFERENT  STRATA       OF 
SOCIETY. 


93 


Influence  of  Christianity  on  the  higher  ranks  of 
society  under-estimated — New  Testament  evi- 
dence— Witness  of  the  Catacombs — Pomponia 
Graecina — Flavius  Clemens  and  Domitilla — Aci- 
lius  Glabrio — Notices  in  Second  Century — The 
wealth  of  the  Church  of  Rome — The  witness  of 
the  persecutions — Tertullian  and  Clement  on 
luxury  of  Christians — Relations  of  Christianity 
with  the  Imperial  Court  in  the  Third  Century — 
The  Decian  persecution  and  its  effects — The 
Church  before  and  under  Diocletian — Social 
status  of  Church  teachers — Result  :  membership 
of  the  Early  Church  not  drawn  mainly  from  the 
lowest,  but  from  the  intermediate  classes,  and 
embraced  many  of  the  wealthier  and  higher 
orders. 


Q4 


LECTURE    II 

r,HE  EXTENSION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  VERTI- 
CALLY, OR  AS  RESPECTS  THE  DIFFE- 
RENT STRATA  OF   SOCIETY 

IN  the  previous  lecture  I  defended  the 
position  that  Christianity  in  the  early 
centuries  had  manifested  an  energy  of  propa- 
gation, and  diffused  itself  with  a  rapidity 
much  greater  than  the  majority  of  Church 
historians  seem  prepared  to  allow ;  I  am  now 
to  seek  to  strengthen  this  position  by  taking 
society,  as  it  were,  in  vertical  section,  and 
inquiring  into  the  degree  in  which  Chris- 
tianity can  be  shown  to   have   affected   the 

95 


96         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

wealthier  and  better-educated  classes  in  the 
Empire,   as  well   as   those  of  inferior  social 
station.     Here  also,  I  think,  the  influence  c  f 
the    gospel   has    generally   been   under-esti- 
(  mated.      It   may  be   going   too   far   to   say, 
]  with  Prof.  Ramsay,  that  Christianity  "  spre?  d 
jat   first   among  the   educated    more   rapid  y 
than  among   the   uneducated " * ;    but   I   am 
persuaded  that  even  this  is  nearer  the  truti 
than  the  opinion  often  expressed  that  Chris- 
tianity drew  the  great  bulk  of  its  adherents 
I   in   the    earliest   times   from   persons   of  the 
lowest  and   most   servile   positions — that,  in 

c — > 

Gibbon's  well-known  words,  the  new  sect 
was  "  almost  entirely  composed  of  the  dregs 
of  the  populace — of  peasants  and  mechanics, 
of  boys  and  women,  of  beggars  and  slaves."  2 
To    say    that   Christianity   began   with    the 


1  Church  in  Roman  Empire,  p.  57. 

2  Gibbon  gives  this  as  "  the  charge  of  malice  and 
infidelity,"  which  he  proceeds  in  part  to  qualify. 


EARLY  PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    97 

lowest  classes,  and  gradually  worked  up  to 
the  higher,  is  at  best  a  half-truth.  It  is  not 
less  true  that  the  gospel  often  laid  hold 
first  of  persons  in  better  social  position,  and 
from  them  worked  around  and  down.  Its 
Divine  power  drew  to  it  men  of  all  classes 
of  society  from  the  beginning,  and  often 
the  persons  in  higher  station  were  the  first 
to  come,  and,  through  their  example,  brought 
others.  The  evidence  on  this,  as  on  the 
other  branches  of  our  subject,  has  been 
gradually  accumulating,  and  in  recent  years 
has  come  to  be  much  better  appreciated. 
Still,  as  respects  the  ordinary  treatment  of 
Church  History,  it  may  justly  be  said  that 
not  a  little  of  it  is  "  a  neglected  factor." 

In  supporting  this  thesis,  which  will  seem 
to  many  paradoxical,  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
misunderstood.  It  is  not  disputed  that  in 
the  days  of  the  Apostles,  and  so  long  as 
Christianity   was   a   proscribed    religion,  the 


v 


98         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

numbers  of  the  wealthy,  and  learned,  and 
powerful,  belonging  to  it  were  still  compara- 
tively few,  and  that  the  body  of  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Church  consisted  of  persons 
of  the  humbler  and  middle  ranks  of  society.1 
The  wealthy  and  noble  must  always  be  few 
in  comparison  with  others  in  the  Church,  for 
this,  if  for  no  other  reason,  that  there  are 
fewer  of  them.  This  is  Origen's  reply  to 
Celsus  as  respects  the  intelligence  of  the 
Christians,  that  "  among  the  multitude  of 
converts  to  Christianity,  the  simple  and  igno- 
rant necessarily  outnumbered  the  more  in- 
telligent, as  the  former  class  always  does  the 
latter r  2     Even  yet  the  greater  part  of  our 

1  The  rude,  misspelt  scrawls  and  execrable  Latinity 
of  many  of  the  Catacomb  inscriptions  are  sufficient 
evidence  of  this.  The  contrast  has  often  been  drawn 
between  the  finely  executed  Pagan  epitaphs  on  one 
side  of  the  Lapidarian  Gallery  in  the  Vatican,  and 
the  hasty,  illiterate  scribbles  of  the  Catacomb  series 
opposite.  (Cf.  Hasenclever  in  Jahr.  f.  Prot.  TheoL, 
VIII.  pp.  34~5-)  2  Contra  Celsum,  i.  27. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     99 

Christian  congregations   does  not  consist  of 

nobles     and     millionaires,    but     of    persons 

drawn   from  the  intermediate   and   humbler 

classes    of    society  —  tradespeople,   artisans, 

peasants,  and  the  best  part  of  these  —  and 

still  more  must  this  have  been  the  case  when 

there  was  far  less  of  a  middle  class  than  there 

is   now,1    and   trade  and  industry   were   left 

chiefly  in  the  hands  of  freedmen,  foreigners, 

and  slaves.     But  this  inferior  social  rank  of 

the  earlier  converts  to  Christianity  has  been 

greatly  exaggerated.     The  sneer  of  Celsus2 

which  Origen  refutes  has  been    repeated  as 

if  it   were    a   true   description   of    Christian 

society,   instead  of  a   caricature.     We   shall 

see   that  if,  as  Paul  says,  "  not   many  wise 

after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many 

noble "   were    called,3    there    were    still,    all 

1  Some  would  say  no  middle  class  at  all,  but  this 
is  an  exaggeration.  Cf.  the  sentence  from  Schultze, 
on  p.  112. 

2  Contra  Celsum,  iii.  55.  3  1  Cor.  i.  26. 


\*s 


\ 


ioo         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

things  considered,  a  surprising  number  from 
these  very  classes  and  from  the  intermediate 
ranks — and  as  time  went  on  still  more — who 
adorned  by  their  faith  the  doctrine  of  God 
their  Saviour.  I  am  far,  indeed,  from  sug- 
gesting that  Christianity  derives  a  lustre 
from  the  mere  social  rank  of  its  converts, 
which  would  not  be  lent  to  it  by  the  virtues 
of  the  humblest.1  The  flow  of  rank  and 
wealth  into  the  Church,  far  from  proving 
a  source  of  blessing  to  it,  has  proved  often 
a  cause  of  backsliding  and  corruption.  But 
it  may  fairly  be  contended  that  just  in  pro- 
portion to  the  obstacles  which  lay  in  the 
way  of  persons  of  rank  and  wealth  becoming 
members  of  an  obscure  and  uninfluential 
sect,  the  more  signally  was  the  power  of  the 
gospel  magnified  in  overcoming  these  ob- 
stacles, and  bringing  them  to  the  feet  of 
the  Crucified.  Neither  must  we  under-esti- 
1  Cf.  James  ii.  5. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     101 

mate  the  effects  on  the  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity of  the  influence  and  example  of 
persons  of  this  class.  That  influence  was 
great,  and  in  the  providential  order  had 
much  to  do  with  the  commending  of 
the  gospel  in  the  circles  in  which  it 
operated. 

An  instructive  fore-glimpse  of  what  is 
afterwards  to  be  illustrated  in  the  history 
of  the  Church  is  already  furnished  in  the 
personal  ministry  of  its  Founder.  The 
wealthy  and  official  classes,  we  know,  as  a 
body  rejected  Christ,  while  "  the  common 
people  heard  Him  gladly." *  The  question 
could  be  asked,  "  Have  any  of  the  rulers 
believed  on  Him,  or  of  the  Pharisees  ? " 2 
Yet  if  we  look  a  little  more  carefully  into 
the  list  of  Christ's  personal  disciples  and 
followers,  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that  they 
are  drawn  neither  from  the  highest,  nor 
1  Mark  xii.  37.  -  John  vii.  48. 


102         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

preponderatingly  from  the  lowest,  ranks  of 
society,  but  from  what  we  should  now  call 
'  the  middle  classes ;  while  instances  are  not 
{wanting  to  show  the  power  of  the  gospel 
on  persons  of  higher  social  position.  Thus, 
among  the  friends  and  followers  of  Jesus 
we  have  mention  made  of  certain  women 
who  had  been  healed  by  Him  and  attended 
Him,  including — with  Mary  Magdalene — 
"Joanna,  the  wife  of  Chuza,  Herod's  steward, 
and  Susanna,  and  many  others,  who  minis- 
tered to  Him  of  their  substance  "  r  ;  we  have 
the  family  of  Bethany  —  Lazarus  and  his 
sisters  —  evidently  of  good  social  position  ; 
we  have,  in  the  band  of  the  Apostles,  the  pairs 
of  brothers,  Simon  and  Andrew,  and  James 
and  John,  who,  though  fishermen,  were  at 
least  in  comfortable  circumstances — Zebedee 
with  his  sons  owning  boats  and  hired  ser- 
vants, and  carrying  on  a  fishery  business  in 
1  Luke  viii.  2. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     103 

partnership  with  Simon  r ;  we  have  the  pub- 
licans, Matthew  and  Zacchaeus,  the  one  able 
to  make  "a  great  feast  in  his  house"  on 
occasion  of  his  Call,2  the  other  "  a  chief  pub- 
lican," and  "  rich "  3  ;  we  have  the  Roman 
centurion,  who  had  built  the  Jews  a  synagogue 
— no  mean  personage  therefore  4 — and  Jairus, 
one  of  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue  5  ;  we  have 
Nicodemus,  a  ruler  of  the  Jews,  and  Joseph 
of  Arimathea,  "  a  councillor  of  honourable 
estate,"  and  "  rich  "  6  ;  we  have  the  testimony 
in  John,  "  Nevertheless  even  of  the  rulers 
many  believed  on  Him,  but  because  of  the 
Pharisees,  they  did  not  confess  it "  7 ;  we 
have  such  instances  as  that  of  the  rich  young 

1  Mark  i.  20  ;  Luke  v.  10.  Nathanael  (=  Bar- 
tholomew ?)  also  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  good 
social  standing  (Cf.  John  i.  45-51).  It  is  noticeable 
that  members  of  this  group  are  found  at  a  distance 
from  their  homes  in  Judea,  waiting  as  disciples  on 
the  Baptist  (John  i.).  2  Luke  v.  29. 

3  Ibid.  xix.  2.  4  Ibid.  vii.  5.  5  Mark  v.  22. 

6  Mark  xv.  43  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  57.  7  John  xh.  42. 


104         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

ruler  attracted  to  Christ,1  of  the  candid  scribe 
who  was  "not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God,"  2 
of  the  other  scribe  who  impulsively  offered 
his  service.3  All  this,  when,  to  use  the 
words  of  the  Evangelist,  "the  Spirit  was 
not  yet  given,  because  Jesus  was  not  yet 
glorified."  4 

Passing  from  the  Gospels  to  the  Church 
in  the  Apostolic  age,  we  have  a  new 
series  of  examples  which  look  in  the  same 
direction.  The  mother  church  at  Jerusalem 
had  among  its  members  possessors  of  lands 
and  houses,  apparently  not  a  few,  who  sold 
them  and  laid  the  proceeds,  in  whole  or 
part,  at  the  Apostles'  feet.5  We  have  specific 
instances  in  Barnabas  of  Cyprus,  who,  having 
land,  sold  it 6 ;  in  Ananias  and  Sapphira, 
who  sold  a  possession  and  deceitfully  kept 
back  part  of  the  price  7 ;   in   the   mother  of 

1  Luke  xviii.  18,  23.  -  Mark  xii.  34. 

3  Matt.  viii.  19.      4  John  vii.  39.      5  Acts  iv.  34,  35. 

6  Ibid.  iv.  37.  7  Ibid.  v.  r.  2. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     105 

John  Mark,  who  had  a  house  of  her  own  in 
Jerusalem.1  Many  of  the  converts  at  Pente- 
cost were  persons  who  had  come  long  and 
expensive  journeys  to  the  feast  -  ;  and  at  an 
early  stage  in  the  history  it  is  testified,  "  A 
great  company  of  the  priests  were  obedient 
to  the  faith."  3  The  eighth  chapter  of  the 
Acts  records  how  the  eunuch  of  Ethiopia, 
described  as  "of  great  authority  under 
Candace,  queen  of  the  Ethiopians,  who 
was  over  all  her  treasure,"  4  was  brought 
to  faith  by  the  Evangelist  Philip  ;  the  ninth 
chapter  relates  the  conversion  of  the  great 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
pupil  of  Gamaliel,  who,  as  a  Roman  citizen, 
may  be  assumed  to  have  been  of  a  good 
family  5 ;  the  eleventh  chapter  tells  of 
Peter's    successful    mission    to    the    devout 

centurion    Cornelius — a   man    noted    for   his 
1  Acts  xii.  12.  2  Ibid.  ii.  5. 

3  Ibid.  vi.  7.  4  Ibid.  viii.  27. 


Cf.  Ramsay's  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  ch.  ii. 


106         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

alms.1  A  new  beginning  in  the  Christian 
propaganda  is  made  in  the  Gentile  Church 
at  Antioch,  and  here,  among  the  prophets 
and  teachers  who  designate  Saul  and 
Barnabas  to  their  work,  we  find  Manaen, 
the  foster-brother  of  Herod  the  Tetrarch.2 
Following  the  Apostle  in  his  missionary 
journeyings,  we  have  continual  examples  of 
how  the  word  took  root  in  the  hearts  of 
persons  of  the  higher  ranks,  even  more 
readily,  often,  than  in  the  minds  of  the 
multitude.  Thus  the  visit  to  Cyprus  issued 
in  the  confusion  of  Elymas  the  Magian  and 
the  conversion  of  the  Proconsul  Sergius 
Paulus.3  The  first  convert  in  Philippi 
was  Lydia,  the  well-to-do  seller  of  purple.4 
In  Thessalonica  a  great  multitude  of  devout 
Greeks  (proselytes)  believed,  and  it  is  ex- 
pressly recorded,  "  of  the  chief  women    not 

1  Acts  x.  2,  31.  2  Ibid.  xiii.  1. 

3  Ibid.  xiii.  12.  4  Ibid.  xvi.  14. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     107 

a  few."  *  Jason,  who  received  the  preachers 
into  his  house  and  shielded  them  from 
violence,  was  evidently  a  man  of  substance.2 
In  the  neighbouring  city  of  Bercea  it  is 
attested  that  many  believed,  "  also  of  the 
Greek  women  of  honourable  estate,  and  of 
men,  not  a  few."  3  Athens  gave  but  few 
converts,  but  one  of  them  was  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite.4  There  is  nothing  in  all^ 
this  of  the  gospel  working  its  way  gradually 
up  from  below.  It  goes  straight  to  the 
hearts  of  these  people  of  honourable  estate 
from  the  lips  of  the  preacher,  or  from  the 
Scriptures  "  searched  daily."  5  At  Corinth, 
besides  the  tent-makers  Aquila  and  Priscilla, 
who  cannot  be  described  as  poor,  we  have 
Crispus,  the  chief  ruler  of  the  synagogue, 
"  believing  in  the  Lord  with  all  his  house  "  6  ; 


1  Acts  xvii.  4.  2  Ibid.  xvii.  9. 

3  Ibid.  xvii.  12.  4  Ibid.  xvii.  34. 

Ibid.  xvii.  11.  6  Ibid,  xviii.  8. 


10S         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

at  Ephesus  we  have  the  conversion  of  the 
dealers  in  magic  arts  and  the  burning  of 
the  great  pile  of  their  books  of  sorcery  z ;  at 
the  island  of  Malta  we  have  the  cure — if  not 
the  conversion — of  the  governor  Publius,2  with 
many  other  indications  of  a  similar  kind. 
Moving  through  the  history  of  the  "  Acts," 
in  fact,  and  gleaning  the  impressions  which 
|  its  pictures  of  the  life  and  work  and  trials 
of  these  early  Christian  brotherhoods  make 
upon  us,  we  never  feel  ourselves  in  contact 
with  Gibbon's  "dregs  of  the  populace,"  but 
are  consciously  at  every  point  in  touch  with 
intelligent,  well-ordered,  and  socially  reput- 
able communities.  These  notices  in  the 
Book  of  Acts  receive  confirmation  and 
amplification  from  the  Epistles,  if  there 
also,  in  many  of  the  Churches,  darker 
shades  appear.  The  Church  at  Corinth, 
to  which  Paul  wrote  that  "not  many 
Acts  xix.  19.  -  Ibid,  xxviii.  8. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     109 

wise,  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble " 
are  called,  embraced  in  its  membership, 
besides  Crispus,  the  chief  ruler  of  the 
synagogue,  Erastus,  the  chamberlain  of  the 
city  * ;  while  the  disorders  at  the  Agape  and 
many  other  indications  —  the  taste  of  the 
Church,  for  instance,  for  rhetoric  and 
Alexandrian  wisdom,  its  conceit  of  know- 
ledge, its  lawsuits  of  the  brethren  one 
with  another,2  its  heresies  on  the  resurrec- 
tion —  show  that  it  was  not  a  church 
composed  exclusively,  or  even  predominat- 
ingly, of  the  poorer  classes,  but  a  church, 
rather,  intellectually  disposed,  and  containing 
in  it  a  good  many  people  of  better  social 
position.  To  this  church  belonged  the 
much-praised  "household  of  Stephanas." 3 
I  need  only  allude — for  I  cannot  delay  long 
on  this  part  of  the  subject — to  such  other 
characters  in  the  Epistles  as  Philemon  of 
1  Rom.  xvi.  23.       ~  i  Cor.  vi.  6.       3  Ibid.  xvi.  15. 


no         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Colosse,  the  master  of  Onesimus,1  the 
hospitable  Onesiphorus,2  the  well-beloved 
Gaius,3  and  the  most  excellent  Theophilus, 
to  whom  the  Evangelist  Luke,4  himself  a 
physician,s  writes  his  "treatises."  The  Epistles 
bear  witness  in  our  favour  in  other  and  less 
direct  ways.  If  the  Apostolic  Churches  had 
slaves  in  their  membership,  they  had  also 
masters,  to  whom  exhortations  are  ad- 
dressed.6 Specially  instructive  in  this  con- 
nection are  the  passages  directed  against 
the  dangers  and  abuses  of  wealth,  as,  e.g., 
where  Paul  exhorts,  "  Charge  them  that  are 
rich  in  this  present  world,  that  they  be  not 
high-minded,  nor  have  their  hope  set  on  the 
uncertainty  of  riches,  but  on  God "  7 ;  or 
where  James  cautions  against  partiality  to 
the     man     with    the    gold    ring    and    fine 

1  Ep.  to  Phil.  2  2  Tim.  i.  16. 

3  3  John.  4  Luke  i.  3  ;  Acts  i.  1. 

5  Col.  iv.  14.  6  Eph.  vi.  9 ;  Col.  iv.  1. 

'  1  Tim.  vi.  17  ;  cf.  vers.  9,  10. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     in 

clothing,  and  denounces  the  rich  men  who 
rob  the  labourers  of  their  hire.1  Finally, 
we  have  the  picture  of  the  Church  of 
Laodicea  in  the  Book  of  Revelation,  which 
boasts  of  being  rich  and  increased  with 
goods — if  this  is  to  be  taken  literally — and 
is  all  the  while  in  deep  spiritual  poverty.2 
We  have,  on  the  other  hand,  the  testimony 
of  the  Apostle  to  "  the  deep  poverty  "  of  the 
Churches  of  Macedonia — connected,  however, 
with  a  special  season  of  tribulation — but  also 
his  witness  to  their  abundant  liberality  in  the 
collection  made  for  the  poor  saints  in  Judea.3 
I  do  not  think  it  is  an  unreasonable  con- 
clusion to  draw  from  these  data  that,  while 
there  were  doubtless  poor  churches,  and 
many  poor  people  in  all  the  churches,  the 
general    membership    of    the    congregations 

1  James  ii.  2,  5  ;  v.  4.     The  latter  passage  need  not 
refer  to  Christians. 

2  Rev.  iii.  17.  s  2  Cor.  viii.  2  ;  ix. 


ii2         NEGLECTED    FACTORS   IN   THE 

was,  contrary  to  the  usual  view,  composed 
of  fairly  well-to-do  and  intelligent  people 
and  commonly  had  among  them  also 
persons  of  highly  respectable,  and  some- 
times quite  conspicuous  positions.  I  am  glad 
in  this  view  to  find  myself  supported  by  the 
writer  already  frequently  quoted — V.  fechultze.  } 
"  It  was  not  the  base  elements,"  he  says,s  |  y 
"  which  came  into  the  Church  ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  better  strata  of  the  Roman 
population,  the  artificers,  the  shopkeepers, 
and  the  small  landed  proprietors,  therefore 
preponderatingly  the  under  and  middle 
portion  of  the  citizen  class,  who,  in  the 
general  moral  and  religious  dissolution  of 
heathenism,  still  proved  themselves  the 
soundest    classes    in    the    community." x      I 

1  Untergang,  I.  p.  25.  I  may  quote  here  also  Dean 
Merivale's  judgment.  "I  have  shown  in  another 
place,"  he  says,  "  that  the  gospel  was  not  embraced, 
on  its  first  promulgation  in  Judea,  by  the  despair  of 
the  most  wretched  outcasts  of  humanity,  but  rather 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     113 

propose,  in  the  remainder  of  the  lecture, 
to  adduce  some  of  the  evidence  furnished 
by  early  ecclesiastical  history,  which,  I 
think,  makes  clear  the  justice  of  this 
contention. 

Here,  again,  I  can  have  no  hesitation  in 
placing  in  the  forefront  of  my  argument  the 
comparatively  recent  and  singularly  impres- 
sive testimony  of  the  Catacombs.  The  evi-  ~ 
dence  which  has  come  to  us  from  this  quarter 
is  partly  elucidatory  and  corroborative  of 
what   had   formerly   been  conjectured  ;    but 

by  the  hopeful  enthusiasm  which  urges  those  en- 
joying a  portion  of  the  goods  of  life  to  improve 
and  fortify  their  position.  And  so  again  at  Rome 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Christianity 
was  only  the  refuge  of  the  afflicted  and  miserable ; 
rather,  if  we  may  lay  any  stress  on  the  monuments 
above  referred  to,  it  was  first  embraced  by  persons 
in  a  certain  grade  of  comfort  and  respectability  ;  by 
persons  approaching  to  what  we  should  call  the 
middle  classes  in  their  condition,  their  education, 
and  their  moral  views." — The  Romans  under  the 
Empire,  ch.  liv.  See  further  Dean  Milman's  judg- 
ment cited  below,  p.  142. 


ii4         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

much  of  it,  also,  is  entirely  new,  and  to  it 
chiefly,  perhaps,  is  due  the  revived  interest 
which  of  late  years  has  been  shown  in  this 
subject  of  the  social  rank  of  the  early 
o\  Christians.  The  very  existence  of  these 
Catacombs,  it  may  be  remarked  at  the  outset, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  circumstances 
of  their  origin,  is  a  proof  that  the  Church 
of  Rome  must  from  the  earliest  period  have 
had  among  its  members  persons  of  wealth 
and  distinction.  The  oldest  of  the  Catacombs 
go  back  to  the  first  century — one  or  two 
perhaps  to  Apostolic  days.  In  nearly  all 
cases  they  seem  to  have  been  begun  as 
private  burial-places  in  the  gardens  or  vine- 
yards of  persons  of  the  wealthier  class,1  while 
the  elegance  and  refinement  of  their  con- 
struction, and  the  elaboration  of  their  decora- 
tions, point  to  lavish  outlay  by  their  owners.2 

1  Cf.  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  I.  pp.  101,  114  ff. 

-  This  artistic  elegance  and  finish  is  characteristic 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     115 

In  some  cases  spots  of  ground  were  directly 
gifted  to  the  Church  for  the  burial  of  the 
brethren.1  But  it  is  chiefly  in  the  inscrip- 
tions, enabling  us  positively  to  identify  par- 
ticular crypts  with  individuals  and  families, 
that  the  interest  of  this  class  of  discoveries 
culminates.  The  amount  of  light  thrown  in 
this  way  on  the  extent  to  which  Christianity 
had  penetrated  into  the  higher  Roman  circles 
is  really  very  surprising.  I  shall  notice  a 
few  of  the  best  known  cases,  combining  with 
the  light  furnished  by  the  Catacombs  such 
knowledge  of  the  facts  as  comes  to  us  from 
other  sources. 

An  early  case  of  great  interest  is  that  of 
Pomponia  Graecina  in  the  reign  of  Nero.  The 
New  Testament  acquaints  us  with  the  fact 

of  all  the  cemeteries  which  on  other  grounds  are 
shown  to  go  back  to  first  century.  Cf.  Northcote 
and  Brownlow,  as  above;  Did.  of  Christ.  Antiq.,  I. 

P-  303. 

1  Cf.  Lanciani,  Pagan  and  Christ.  Rome,  p.  336. 


£ 


n6    NEGLECTED  FACTORS  IN  THE 

that  Christianity  had  early  obtained  a  foot- 
ing in  that  immense  establishment  known 
as  "  Caesar's  Household." i  Prof.  Ramsay 
quotes  from  Mommsen  the  observation 
that  nowhere  had  Christianity  a  stronger 
hold  than  in  the  household  and  at  the 
court  of  the  Emperors.2  But  that,  beyond 
this  household,  Christianity  had  found  its 
way  into  the  highest  circles,  had  long  been 

1  Phil.  iv.  22.  See  the  description  of  this  gigantic 
establishment  in  Lightfoot's  Philippians,  pp.  171  ff  ; 
also  Friedlander,  Sittengeschichte  Roms,  I.  pp.  71-210. 
Withrow  states  :  1"  In  remarkable  confirmation  of 
this  fact  is  the  discovery  in  the  recent  explorations 
of  the  ruins  of  the  Imperial  Palace  [Nero's  "  Golden 
House"],  of  several  Christian  memorials,  including 
one  of  those  lamps  adorned  with  evangelical  symbols 
so  common  in  the  Catacombs  "  (p.  56). 

2  Church  in  Roman  Empire,  p.  57.  Harnack  says  : 
"  We  are  able  to-day,  on  the  basis  of  fully  authenti- 
cated records,  to  declare,  with  satisfactory  certainty, 
that  even  in  the  time  of  the  Apostles  the  palace  of 
the  Emperor  was  one  of  the  chief  seats  of  the 
growing  Christian  Church  in  Rome."  Art.  on  "  Chris- 
tianity and  Christians  at  the  Court  of  the  Emperors," 
in  Princeton  Review,  July,  1878,  p.  257. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     117 

surmised  from  an  obscure  notice  in  Tacitus, 
which  relates  how  in  A.D.  57,  a  lady  of 
illustrious  birth,  Pomponia  Graecina,  wife  of 
Aulus  Plautius,  the  conqueror  of  Britain,  was 
accused  before  the  Senate,  and  was  tried  and 
acquitted  before  a  domestic  tribunal  on  a 
charge  of  "  foreign  superstition  "  {supersti- 
tionis  externa),  and  how  her  life  was  there- 
after spent  in  deep  gloom.1  The  peculiarity 
of  the  charge  in  this  case  led  to  the  con- 
jecture that  the  "foreign  superstition"  in 
question  was  none  other  than  Christianity. 
So  long  as  it  depended  solely  on  this  passage, 
the  inference  was  felt  to  be  precarious,  and 
we  cannot  feel  surprised  that  while  the 
majority  of  scholars  acquiesced  in  it,  others, 
equally  learned,  took  an  opposite  view.  Now, 
however,  the  conjecture  has  practically  been 
converted  into  certainty  by  the  discovery  by 
De  Rossi  in  the  crypt  of  Lucina — one  of 
1  Tac.  Annals,  xiii.  32. 


n8         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

the  very  oldest  parts  of  the  Catacombs — of 
several  inscriptions  unmistakably  showing 
a  connection  of  the  vault  with  members 
of  the  Pomponian  gens — one  descendant 
bearing  this  very  family  name :  Pomponius 
Graecinus.1  It  is  an  ingenious  conjecture 
of  De  Rossi  that  probably  the  Lucina  who 
gives  her  name  to  the  crypt  is  Pomponia 
Graecina  herself.  Lucina  would  then  be  the 
name  assumed  by  this  lady  at  baptism.2 
This  same  distinguished  person,  it  should 

1  Cf.  Northcote  and  Brownlow  for  details,  I.  pp. 
277-281.  Lightfoot  says,  "It  is  clear  therefore  that 
this  burial-place  was  constructed  by  some  Christian 
lady  of  rank,  probably  before  the  close  of  the  first 
century,  for  her  fellow-religionists,  and  that  within 
a  generation  or  two  a  descendant  or  near  kinsman 
of  Pomponia  Graecina  was  buried."  {Clement,  I.  p. 
31.   Cf.  Harnack,  Princeton  Review,  July,  1878,  p.  263.) 

2  Hasencleveiy  n  his  interesting  articles  on  "  Christian 
Proselytes  of  the  Higher  Rank  in  the  First  Century," 
in  Jahr.  f.  Prot.  Theol.  viii.,  seeks  to  minimise  the 
evidence  in  the  above  and  later  cases,  but  in  view  of 
the  Catacomb  testimony,  his  arguments  need  scarcely 
be  discussed.   Cf.  Lightfoot,  Clement,  pp.  30,  32,  &c. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     119 

be  said,  is  connected  by  many  scholars  with 
the  gospel  in  another  way,  though  much 
weight,  I  fear,  cannot  be  allowed  to  their 
speculations.  Specious  grounds  have  been 
alleged  for  the  identification  of  the  Pudens 
and  Claudia  named  in  2  Tim.  iv.  21  as 
prominent  members  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
with  a  Pudens  and  Claudia  repeatedly  men- 
tioned in  the  epigrams  of  Martial,1  the  former 
a  Roman  centurion  of  distinction,  the  latter 
a  British  princess  whom  Pudens  wedded. 
Last  century  (1722)  there  was  discovered  at 
Chichester  an  inscription  which  tells  how  a 
site  was  presented  by  one  Pudens  to  the 
British  king,  Claudius  Cogidubnus — the  same 
with  whom,  as  we  learn  from  Tacitus,  Aulus 
Plautius  had  friendly  relations  in  his  cam- 
paigns.    The  presumption  is  strong  that  the 

1  See  the  passages  quoted  in  Alford's  Excursus  on 
Pudens  and  Claudia,  in  Proleg.  to  2  Timothy,  Greek 
Test.,  iii.  p.  104. 


120         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

Pudens  of  Martial  is  an  officer  who  served 
under  Plautius  in  Britain,  and  that  the  princess 
he  married  was  the  daughter  of  this  King 
Claudius  Cogidubnus.  If  so,  we  have  a  link 
connecting  her  with  Pomponia  Graecina,  under 
whose  protection  it  may  be  presumed  that 
she  journeyed  to  Rome,  and  whose  connection 
with  the  family  of  the  Rufi  furnishes  a  reason 
for  the  assumption  by  her  of  the  second 
name  she  bears — Claudia  Rufina.  The  same 
link  connects  Claudia  with  Christianity,  and 
gives  plausibility  to  the  suggestion  that 
through  Pomponia  she  may  have  been  intro- 
duced into  Christian  circles,  and  with  her, 
Pudens.1  The  weak  point  in  this  train  of 
reasoning,  otherwise  so  seductive,  is  the 
absence  of  any  evidence  that  Claudia  Rufina 
was  brought  under  Christian  influences,  for 

1  The  Pudens  and  Claudia  of  Martial  were  not 
married  at  the  date  of  the  epistle ;  neither  apparently 
were  the  pair  in  the  text,  since  the  name  of  Linus 
intervenes. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     121 

the  mere  occurrence  of  two  names  so  common 
as  Pudens  and  Claudia  in  2  Tim.  iv.  21  does 
not  prove  it.  The  identification  with  the 
members  of  the  Roman  Church  is  favoured, 
however,  by  writers  like  Alford,  Conybeare 
and  Howson,  Lewin,  and  Plumptre  ;  while 
Lightfoot  and  others,  on  chronological  and 
moral  grounds,  decidedly — possibly  too  de- 
cidedly— reject  it.1  The  utmost  that  can  be 
said  for  it  at  present  is  that  the  coincidences 
are  unquestionably  striking. 

Pomponia  Graecina  lived  on  into  the  reign 
of  Domitian,  and  her  influence,  as  Lightfoot 
suggests,2  may  not  have  been  without  its 
share  in  bringing  about  the  next  outstand- 
ing cases  of  conversion  we  have   to  record 

1  See  in  favour  of  the  identification,  Alford  ut  supra 
and  against,  Lightfoot,  Clement,  I.  pp.  76-79.  Light- 
foot gives  the  references  to  the  others.  Farrar,  who 
scouts  the  identification  in  his  St.  Paul  (ch.  56),  uses 
it  to  garnish  his  picture  in  his  Darkness  and  Dawn. 

2  Pp.  32-3. 


122         NEGLECTED  FACTORS  IN  THE 

— those  of  Flavius  Clemens,  the  consul,  and 
Domitilla,  his  wife  —  the  former  the  cousin, 
the  latter  the  niece,  of  the  Emperor  Domi- 
tian.  The  basis  here  again  is  the  statement 
of  a  heathen  writer.  Dion  Cassius  (or  his 
epitomiser  Xiphilinus)  informs  us  that  these 
two  persons  were  accused  of  "  atheism,"  and 
"going  astray  after  the  customs  of  the  Jews" 
(afleorrjroc  .  •.•  .  iff  to  lovcatwv  Wt]  e^OKtX- 
Xovreg),  for  which  offence  Clement  was  put 
to  death,  and  Domitilla  was  banished  to  the 
island  of  Pandatereia  in  the  ^Egean.1  The 
peculiar  wording  of  the  charge  long  ago 
suggested  that,  as  in  the  previous  case,  it 
was  really  the  offence  of  Christianity  for 
which  Clement  and   his  wife  suffered2;  and 

1  Dion  Cassius,  lxvii.  44  :  Suet.  Dom.  15.  See 
on  these  passages  Lightfoot,  Philippians,  pp.  21-23  : 
Clement,  I.  pp.  33-35  :  Ignat.  I.  pp.  12,  13. 

2  Thus  already  Gibbon  (ch.  xvi.)  :  "  A  singular 
association  of  ideas,  which  cannot  with  any  propriety 
be  applied  except  to  the  Christians."  Most  modern 
scholars  agree. 


EARLY  PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     123 

this  conjecture  was  strengthened  by  a  notice 
in  Eusebius,  derived  from  the  Roman  his- 
torian Bruttius,  that  Flavia  Domitilla,  whom 
by  a  confusion  he  calls  the  niece  (not  the 
wife)  of  Flavius  Clemens,  was  banished  for 
confessing  Christ.1  It  has  been  reserved  for 
Catacomb  exploration  to  clear  up  the  am- 
biguity attaching  to  this  case  also,  and  to 
establish  beyond  doubt  the  Christianity  of 
the  illustrious  pair.  The  cemetery  of  Domi- 
tilla has  been  discovered  by  the  labours  of 
De  Rossi,  with  inscriptions  abundantly  at- 
testing her  ownership  of  the  ground,  and 
its    use    for    Christian    burial 2 ;     while    the 

1  Eus.  Ecc.  Hist.  iii.  18  :  cf.  Chronicle  under  a.d. 
95.  On  the  discrepancies  with  Dion  Cassius,  &c, 
see  Lightfoot,  Phil.,  pp.  22,  23,  and  Clement,  I.  pp. 
44-51  ;  and  Harnack,  Princeton  Review,  July,  1878, 
pp.  266-69.  Harnack  favours  the  theory  of  two 
Domitillas. 

2  Cf.  for  details,  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  Rom. 
Sott.  I.  pp.  120-6  :  Lanciani,  Pag.  and  Christ.  Rome, 
PP.  3l6>  335-34°  :    Lightfoot,  Clement,  I.  pp.  35-37 ; 


I24         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

further  discovery  of  an  elegantly-constructed 
crypt  of  the  Flavians  shows  that,  in  the 
words  of  Harnack,  "  an  entire  branch  of 
the  Flavian  family  embraced  the  Christian 
faith." J  It  will  not  be  denied  that  these 
facts  furnish  startling  illustration  of  the 
extent  to  which,  by  the  close  of  the  first 
century,  Christianity  had  pushed  its  con- 
quests. Next  to  the  Emperor  himself,  these 
two  personages  held  the  highest  rank  in 
the  Empire ;  they  stood  nearest  to  the  throne ; 
their  two  sons  had  even  been  designated  by 
Domitian   as   his   heirs   to   the   purple.2      It 

Harnack,  Princeton  Review,  July,  1878,  pp.  268-9. 
The  cemetery  is  that  of  Domitilla,  who  alone  is 
mentioned  by  Eusebius,  but  the  charge  was  the 
same  against  both  husband  and  wife. 

1  Harnack  {ut  supra)  says,  "What  a  change  !  Be- 
tween fifty  and  sixty  years  after  Christianity  reached 
\  Rome,  a  daughter  of  the  Emperor  (Vespasian)  em- 
braces the  faith,  and  thirty  years  after  the  fearful 
persecutions  of  Nero,  the  presumptive  heirs  to  the 
throne  were  brought  up  in  a  Christian  house " 
(p.  269).  2  Suet.  Dom.  15. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     125 

seemed  almost  as  if,  ere  the  last  Apostle  had 
quitted  the  scene  of  his  labours,  Christianity 
were  about  to  mount  the  seat  of  empire  ! 

There  is,  however,  yet  another  case,  belong- 
ing to  this  period,  quite  as  striking  in  its 
elements  of  surprise  as  that  of  Clemens  and 
Flavia  Domitilla.  Dion  informs  us  in  the 
passage  already  cited  that  besides  these  two, 
"  many  others  "  (aXXoi  7roAXoQ  were  arraigned 
on  the  same  charges — among  them  Glabrio 
who  had  been  consul  with  Trajan,  who  also 
was  condemned,  and  put  to  death.  The  full 
name  of  this  victim  of  Domitian's  persecuting 
zeal  was  Manius  Acilius  Glabrio,  and  his 
family  was  conspicuous  as  one  of  the  very 
wealthiest  and  most  illustrious  in  the  State. 
"  Towards  the  end  of  the  republic,"  says 
Lanciani,  "we  find  them  (the  Acilii)  estab- 
lished on  the  Pincian  Hill,  where  they  had 
built  a  palace,  and  laid  out  gardens  which 
extended  at   least   from  the  convent  of  the 


126         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN    THE 

Trinita  dei  Monti  to  the  Villa  Borghese. 
The  family  had  grown  so  rapidly  to  honour, 
splendour,  and  wealth,  that  Pertinax  in  the 
Senate  in  which  he  was  elected  emperor, 
proclaimed  them  the  noblest  race  in  the 
world."1  Doubt  was  still  entertained  by 
many,  however,  whether  the  terms  of  the 
passage  in  Dion  necessarily  included  Chris- 
tianity among  the  charges  on  which  Glabrio 
was  condemned,  and  Lightfoot,  in  reviewing 
the  evidence,  declared  that  the  case  seemed 
to  him  to  break  down  altogether.2  It  is 
permissible  to  think  that  were  this  eminent 
scholar  writing  now,  his  opinion  would  be 
somewhat  modified.  For  here,  again,  Cata- 
comb discovery  has  come  to  our  help.  In 
the  year  1888,  a  crypt  was  laid  bare  by  the 
indefatigable  De  Rossi,  which  proved  to  be 
that  of  the  Acilii  Glabriones.     A  fragment  of 

1  Pagan  and  Christ.  Rome,  p.  5. 

2  Clement,  I.  p.  82. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     127 

a  marble  coffin  was  found,  inscribed  with  the 
words  Acilio  Glabrioni  Filio?  and  additional 
inscriptions  have  since  confirmed  the  identifi- 
cation.2 As  this  crypt  forms  the  centre  of  a 
large  group  of  galleries,  its  Christian  character 
can  hardly  be  doubted.  Thus  again  we  see 
Christianity  penetrating  into  one  of  the 
wealthiest  and  most  renowned  families  of 
the  Flavian  age.3 

The  individual  instances  I  have  cited  are 

1  Probably  son  of  Manius  Acilius  Glabrio,  Consul, 
124  a.d.  On  the  Acilian  inscriptions,  see  Frontis- 
piece and  Note  in  Appendix. 

3  Lanciani,  pp.  4-8.  "His  end  helped,  no  doubt," 
this  writer  says,  "the  propagation  of  the  gospel 
among  his  relatives  and  descendants,  as  well  as 
among  the  servants  and  freedmen  of  the  house,  as 
shown  by  the  noble  sarcophagi  and  the  humble 
loculi  found  in  such  numbers  in  the  crypt  of  the 
Catacombs  of  Priscilla"  (p.  7.  Cf.  Ramsay,  Church 
in  Roman  Empire,  pp.  262-3). 

3  A  Catacomb  inscription  furnishes  good  reason 
also  for  believing  that  Bruttius,  the  historian  on 
whom  Eusebius  depends  for  his  information  about 
Domitilla,  was,  or  became,  a  Christian.  Thus  Light- 
foot  and  Lanciani. 


128         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

far  from  exhausting   the  evidence    supplied 
by  the  Catacombs  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
gospel    by    persons   of  the   upper   ranks   in 
society  in   the   first  century,  but   they  may 
suffice.      As  an   interesting   indication    from 
the  literary  side,  I  may  refer  to  the  apocry- 
phal  Acts  of  Paul  and   Thecla,  which  most 
scholars  now  believe  to  have  at  least  a  basis 
of  historical  truth.     Thecla  was  the  daughter 
of  a  noble  and  wealthy  family  in   Iconium, 
and   Queen  Tryphaena,   of    Pontus,   who    is 
shown    by   recent    discovery   to    be    a   real 
historical  personage,  is  related  to  have  been 
converted    by   her.      Prof.    Ramsay   accepts 
these  facts  as  probably  historical1;  Harnack 
also   regards   the   book   as   "without    doubt 
resting  upon  historical  accounts."2    It  there- 
fore   adds    its    grain    of    testimony    to    our 
general  contention. 

1  Church  in  Roman  Empire,  p.  414. 

2  Princeton  Review,  July,  1878,  p.  263. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     129 

When  we  pass  to  the  second  century  we 

are  not  so  entirely  dependent  upon  Catacomb 

witness  as  in  the  first,  though  here  also,  as 

we  shall  see,  the  Catacombs  have  important 

aid  to  offer  us.     The  river  of  Church  History 

still  flows,  indeed,  so  much  underground  as 

to  be  for  long  periods  almost  entirely  out  of 

sight.     Yet   numerous    illustrations    are   not 

wanting   to   show   us   that    the    gospel   was 

drawing  its  converts  on  every  side  from  the 

higher  as  well  as  the  lower  orders  of  society. 

Pliny^it  will  be  remembered,  bears  emphatic 

testimony  to   this   in   Bithynia  and   Pontus. 

Persons  of  all  ages,  of  all  ranks,  and  of  both 

sexes,   he  reports   to   Trajan,   had   accepted 

Christianity,  and  the  number  was  daily  in- 

• 
creasing.1     The   Epistle   of  Ignatius   to  the 

Romans,  about  the  same  time,  presupposes, 

as  Dr.  Lightfoot  points  out,  that  there  were 

persons   in   high   quarters   in    Rome   so   in- 

1  Ep.,  96. 
9 


130         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

fluential  that  the  writer  fears  their  inter- 
cession may  deprive  him  of  the  crown  of 
Martyrdom.1  Hernias,  in  his  Shepherd — 
that  Pilgrim's  Progress  of  the  Early  Church 
— has  numerous  references  to  the  wealthy  in 
the  Church  of  Rome — possessors  of  lands 
and  houses — whom  he  rebukes  for  worldli- 
ness  and  luxury.2  The  wealth  of  the  Church 
is  witnessed  to  us  in  a  more  pleasing  way 
by  its  reputation  for  an  abundant  liberality. 
Dionysius,  the  Bishop  of  Corinth,  about 
170  A.D.,  extols  the  Church  of  Rome  for 
this  grace.  "  For  this,"  he  says,  "  is  your 
practice  from  the  beginning,  to  do  good  to 
all  the  brethren  in  various  ways,  and  to  send 

1  Ep.  to  Rom.,  1,2  ;  cf.  Lightfoot,  I  gnat.  I.  p.  356. 
To  the  same  effect  Harnack  :  "  Before  what  other 
person  than  the  Emperor  could  this  intercession  be 
made.  .  .  .  We  must  conclude  that  there  were  per- 
sons at  that  time  among  the  Roman  Christians  who 
possessed  great  influence  at  the  Court"  {Princeton 
Review,  July,  1878,  p.  278). 

2  Hermas,  Sim.  i. ;  ii. ;  viii.  9 ;  ix.  20,  &c.  His 
own  mistress  was  a  rich  lady. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     131 

contributions  to  many  churches  in  every 
city,  thus  refreshing  the  poverty  of  those  in 
need,  and  furnishing  supplies  to  the  brethren 
in  the  mines.  By  these  gifts,  which  ye  send 
from  the  beginning,  as  Romans,  ye  maintain 
the  ancestral  custom  of  the  Romans,  which 
your  blessed  Bishop  Soter  has  not  only 
observed,  but  also  increased,  providing  great 
abundance  for  distribution  to  the  saints, 
and  with  blessed  words  encouraging  the 
brethren  from  abroad,  as  a  loving  father 
his  children."  *  When  we  reflect  that  the 
bulk  of  the  Roman  mob  was  practically  idle 
— clamouring  for  bread  and  games,  or 
dangling  as  clients  in  attendance  on  the 
rich — and  that  slaves  had  little,  we  see  that 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  membership 
of  the  Church  must  have  been  composed 
of  persons  in  higher  social  station,  or  at 
least  of  the  sections  which  possessed  wealth. 
1  Euseb.,  Ecc.  Hist.,  iv.  23. 


132         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Justin's  picture  of  the  Christian  worship 
bears  out  this  idea.  "The  wealthy  among 
us,"  he  says,  "  help  the  needy.  .  .  .  They 
who  are  well  to  do,  and  willing,  give  what 
each  thinks  fit ;  and  what  is  collected  is 
deposited  with  the  president,  who  succours 
the  orphans  and  widows,  and  those  who, 
through  sickness  or  any  other  cause,  are  in 
want,  and  those  who  are  in  bonds,  and  the 
strangers  sojourning  among  us."  * 

This  brings  us  again  to  the  corroborative 
testimony  of  the  Catacombs,  and  to  the 
interesting  additional  information  which  they 
supply.  I  can  only  draw  attention  to  the 
costly  crypts  and  tombs  of  the  cemetery  of 
Praetextatus — a  Catacomb  of  the  second 
century — which  are  constructed  in  the  finest 
style  of  art.2     In  a  tomb  cased  with  marble, 

1  ist  Apol.,  67. 

2  See  the  remarkable  descriptions  of  the  archi- 
tecture, paintings,  and  rich  tombs  in  Northcote  and 
Brownlow,  I.  pp.  133-44. 


EARLY    PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     133 

in  one  of  the  chambers  of  this  cemetery, 
lie  two  bodies,  one  wrapped  in  cloth  of 
gold,  the  other  in  purple,  while  on  a 
grave  in  the  wall  is  an  inscription  marking 
the  resting-place  of  "  Urania,  daughter  of 
Herod." x  It  is  hardly  possible  to  avoid 
connecting  this  Urania  with  the  daughter 
of  the  same  name  of  the  famous  Herod 
Atticus,2  whose  villa  and  mausoleum  are  in 
the  immediate  neighbourhood.  If  so,  the 
identification  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
we  have  yet  met  with.  Herod  Atticus  is 
known  to  history  as  a  celebrated  rhetorician, 
and  the  tutor  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  but  also, 

1  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  I.  p.  134. 

a  "  Daughter  of  Herod  Atticus  by  his  second  wife, 
Vibullia  Alcia"  (Lanciani,  Pagan  and  Christ.  Rome, 
p.  9).  For  a  full  account  of  Herod  Atticus  and  his 
extraordinary  wealth,  see  the  same  work,  pp.  287  ff. 
Herod's  father,  through  the  discovery  of  a  treasure, 
"suddenly  became  the  richest  man  in  Greece,  and 
probably  in  the  world."  Cf.  also  Merivale,  Romans 
under  the  Empire,  ch.  lxvi. 


134         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

through  the  inheritance  of  an  immense 
treasure,  as  probably  the  wealthiest  man  of 
his  time.  And  here  we  have  apparent  evi- 
dence that  iiis  daughter  had  embraced  the 
Christian  faith.  We  have,  besides,  inscrip- 
tions attesting  the  Christianity  of  members 
of  consular  families,  and  many  of  equestrian 
rank.1  A  special  interest  attaches  to  the 
discovery  by  De  Rossi,  in  the  cemetery  of 
Callistus,  of  the  crypt  of  Caecilia,  the  virgin- 
martyr  round  whom  so  many  legends  of 
the  Roman  Church  subsequently  gathered. 
Some  obscurity  rests  on  the  date  of  Csecilia's 
martyrdom,  but  it  was  probably  in  the  reign 
of  Marcus  Aurelius.2  De  Rossi's  account  of 
this  lady,  which  Lightfoot  in  the  main 
accepts,  is  briefly  as  follows  :  That  Caecilia 
was   a   lady  of  noble  birth ;    that   the   land 

1  Pagan  and  Christian  Rome,  p.  10. 

2  See  the  questions  fully  discussed  in  Lightfoot, 
Ignatius,  I.  pp.  503-4. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    135 

in  this  place  belonged  to  her  gens ;  that 
some  members  of  the  family  were  converted 
to  Christianity  in  the  second  century,  so  that 
Caecilia  was  a  Christian  from  her  cradle ; 
that  these  Christian  Csecilii  made  over  the 
subterranean  vaults  for  the  purposes  of 
Christian  burial,  and  subsequently  were  them- 
selves laid  here ;  and  that  this  was  the  origin 
of  the  cemetery  of  Callistus,  or  of  parts  of 
it.1  There  is  no  question  in  view  of  the 
inscriptions  found  that  the  crypt  discovered 
by  De  Rossi  is  that  in  which  the  body  of 
the  martyr  was  originally  laid,  and  from 
which  it  is  related  to  have  been  removed 
with  honour  by  Pope  Paschal  in  the  ninth 
century.2     The  spread  of  Christianity  in  the 

1  Lightfoot,  ut  supra. 

2  The  body  was  placed  in  the  Church  of  St.  Cascilia 
in  Trastevere.  In  1599,  in  the  course  of  excavations, 
the  marble  sarcophagus,  with  the  body  enclosed, 
clothed  in  blood-stained  robes  of  golden  tissue,  was 
brought  to  light.  Cf.  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  I. 
pp.  320-1. 


i36         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

gens  is  abundantly  attested  by  the  numbers 
of  epitaphs  of  these  Christian  Csecilii  and 
other  noble  families  connected  with  them 
by  blood  and  marriage  in  adjoining  parts 
of  the  Catacomb,  and  these  not  mere  de- 
pendents, but,  as  their  titles,  C/arzsszmus, 
Clarissima,  and  the  like,  show,  illustrious 
members  of  their  houses.1 

All  this  speaks  with  great  distinctness  to 
the  highly  influential  position  of  the  Church 
at  Rome,  and  if  we  cannot  pronounce  with 
the  same  definiteness  of  other  places,  it  is 
only  because,  till  near  the  end  of  the 
century,  light  almost  wholly  fails  us.  When 
we  do  get  a  glimpse,  as  in  the  beauti- 
ful Epistle  of  the  Churches  of  Vienne  and 
Lyons,   giving    an    account   of  the   martyr- 

1  Northcote  and  Brownlow,  I.  pp.  278,327.  Twelve 
or  thirteen  of  these  epitaphs,  all  of  Caecilii  or 
Casciliani,  are  found  in  the  crypt  of  Lucina.  There 
seems  further  to  have  been  some  connection  between 
this  family  and  that  of  Pomponia  Graecina. 


EARLY    PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     137 

doms  in  these  places  in  177  A.D.,  the  same 
mixture  of  classes  is  forced  on  our  atten- 
tion. If  we  have  Blandina,  the  slave-girl, 
a  "  noble  athlete "  in  confessing  Christ,  we 
have  also  among  the  sufferers  the  mistress  of 
Blandina;  we  have  one  prominent  confessor, 
noted  as  "  a  man  of  distinction  "  {iTcidrjfjioq) ; 
we  have  a  number  of  Roman  citizens  ;  we 
have  heads  of  households,  whose  domestics 
are  seized  to  give  evidence  against  them  ;  we 
have  a  well-known  physician  ;  and  generally 
the  martyrs  seem  to  be  of  the  middle  or 
better  class.1  Another  remarkable  instance — 
again  from  Rome — is  that  of  the  senator 
Apollonius,  a  man  "  renowned  for  learning 
and  philosophy,"  who,  on  being  denounced 
by  an  informer,  made  an  eloquent  defence  of 
his  religion  before  the  Senate,  and  was  sen- 
tenced to  decapitation.2     When,  however,  we 

1  See  the  Epistle  in  Eusebius,  v.  1. 

2  Eus.   v.   21.    The   Acts  of  Apollonius  have  re- 


138         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

approach  the  close  of  the  century,  full  light 
returns  to  us ;  and  we  see  in  the  Churches 
of  Carthage  and  Alexandria,  and  elsewhere, 
how  completely  Christianity  had  succeeded 
in  penetrating  the  wealthiest  classes  in  the 
chief  centres  of  population. 

The  fatal  edict  (or,  as  Neumann  will  have 
it,  rescript *)  of  Septimus  Severus,  in  202  A.D., 
which  initiated  the  persecution  connected 
with  his  name,  came  as  a  great  revealing 
blow  to  the  Churches  affected  by  it.  It  made 
manifest,  not  only  how  many  of  the  wealthier 
and  dignified  classes  had,  nominally  at  least, 
embraced  Christianity,  but  also  how  unfit 
much  of  their  profession  was  to  endure  the 
fire  of  trial.  Here  it  may  be  noted  as 
singular   that   the   brunt  of  the  persecution 

cently  been  recovered.   Cf.  Conybeare,  The  Armenian 
Apology  and  Acts  of  Apollonius  (1896) ;  then,  after  the 
discovery  of  the  Greek  Acts,  Klette,  Der  Process  und 
Die  Acta  S.  Apollonius  (1897). 
1  Der  Rom.  Staat,  p.  161. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     139 

was  borne,  not  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  but 
by  the  comparatively  remote  Churches  of 
North  Africa  and  Egypt.  The  same  thing 
may  be  observed  in  other  persecutions. 
Why  was  this?  Was  it  that  the  Roman 
Christian  community  was  socially  obscure 
and  insignificant  ?  Or  was  it  for  the  opposite 
reason,  which  Tertullian  suggests,  that  Chris- 
tianity had  struck  its  roots  so  deeply  into  the 
State,  and  had  drawn  to  itself  in  Rome  so 
many  illustrious  men  and  women — people  in 
the  highest  positions  l — that  even  an  emperor 
might  shrink  from  the  upturning  of  society 
which  a  general  proscription  would  involve? 
Septimus  Severus  himself,  as  we  know,  for 
a  time  looked  favourably  on  Christianity, 
having  been  healed,  it  is  said,  of  some  dis- 
order by  a  Christian  slave.2  Whatever  the 
explanation,  the  blow  did  fall  pre-eminently, 
not   on   the   capital,   but   on    Carthage    and 

1  Ad  Scapulam,  4.  2  Ibid. 


140         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Alexandria,  and  its  effect  in  both  places  was 
to  discover  at  once  the  hold  which  the  new 
religion  had  on  the  people  of  rank  and  wealth. 
Tertullian  is  an  unexceptionable  witness  for 
Carthage.  In  his  address  to  the  proconsul 
Scapula,  pleading  his  cause  with  that  digni- 
tary, he  pictures  the  Christians  presenting 
themselves  in  a  body  before  his  tribunal, 
and  asks,  "  What  will  you  make  of  so  many 
thousands,  of  such  a  multitude  of  men  and 
women,  persons  of  every  sex,  and  every  age, 
and  every  rank,  when  they  present  themselves 
before  you?  How  many  fires,  how  many 
swords  will  be  required  ?  What  will  be  the 
anguish  of  Carthage  itself,  which  you  will  have 
to  decimate,  as  each  one  recognises  there  his 
relatives  and  companions,  as  he  sees  there,  it 
may  be,  men  of  your  own  order,  and  noble 
ladies,  and  all  the  leading  persons  of  the  city, 
and  either  kinsmen  or  friends  of  those  of  your 
own  circle?     Spare   thyself,  if  not  us  poor 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    141 

Christians  !  Spare  Carthage,  if  not  thyself !  "  * 
When  the  storm  burst,  it  was  naturally  those 
classes  which  had  to  make  the  greatest 
worldly  sacrifices  which  showed  the  largest 
number  of  defections.  If  they  did  not  deny 
Christ,  they  sought  by  expedients  of  bribery 
to  secure  exemption  from  trouble.  "Whole 
churches,"  says  Tertullian,  in  this  way  "im- 
posed tribute  en  masse  on  themselves."  2 

Clearest  of  all  among  the  proofs,  how- 
ever, of  the  extent  to  which  the  wealth 
and  fashion  of  these  luxurious  cities  had 
found  their  way  into  the  Churches,  are 
the  satirical  descriptions  and  denunciations 
of  Tertullian  and  Clement  of  Alexandria 
in  picturing  a  state  of  Christian  society 
deeply  infected  with  the  vices  and  follies  of 
the  age.  The  rules  of  living  in  Clement's 
Pcedagogue,  with  their  "caustic  sketches," 
to  use  Farrar's  words,  "of  the  glutton,  and 
1  Ad  Scap.  5.  8  De  Fuga,  13. 


142         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  dandy,  and  the  painted,  perfumed,  be- 
wigged,  and  bejewelled  lady  of  fashion," * 
would  have  no  application  at  all  to  a  Church 
composed  wholly  or  mainly  of  "  dregs  of  the 
populace " ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
Tertullian's  denunciation  of  the  luxury  and 
extravagance  of  the  women  of  his  time  in  his 
tract  on  The  Attire  of  Women?  Dean  Milman 
takes  what  seems  the  only  just  view  of  the 
matter!  "It  appears  unquestionable,"  he 
says,  "  that  the  strength  of  Christianity  lay  in 
the  middle,  perhaps  the  mercantile,  classes. 
The  last  two  books  of  the  Pcedagogue  of 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  the  most  copious 
authority  for  Christian  manners  at  that  time, 

1  The  Fathers,  I.  p.  375. 

"  Cf .,  e.g.,  the  picture  of  extravagance  in  the  close  of 
bk.  i.,  and  the  denunciations  of  cosmetics,  dyeing  the 
hair,  elaborate  hair-attire,  splendid  and  excessive 
dress,  in  bk.  ii.,  with  the  concession  to  those  "whom 
the  exigencies  of  riches,  or  birth,  or  past  dignities, 
compel  to  appear  in  public  so  gorgeously  arrayed  as 
not  to  appear  to  have  attained  wisdom  "  (ii.  9). 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     143 

inveigh  against  the  vices  of  an  opulent 
and  luxurious  community ;  splendid  dresses, 
jewels,  gold  and  silver  vessels,  rich  banquets, 
gilded  litters  and  chariots,  and  private  baths. 
The  ladies  kept  Indian  birds,  Median  pea- 
cocks, monkeys,  and  Maltese  dogs,  instead  of 
maintaining  widows  and  orphans,  the  men 
had  multitudes  of  slaves.  The  sixth  chapter 
of  the  third  book  (that  the  Christian  alone 
is  rich)  would  have  been  unmeaning  if 
addressed  to  a  poor  community."  J 

But  if  many  were  vain  and  foolish,  and 
fell  in  the  stress  of  the  persecutions,  there 
were  honourable  exceptions.  The  gem  of 
the  martyrology  of  this  period  is  the  un- 
doubtedly genuine  narrative2  of  the  martyr- 
dom of  Perpetua  and  her  companions. 
Perpetua,  a  young  married  lady,  of  noble 
birth,  was,  with  her   brother,  a   catechumen 

1  Hist,  of  Christ,  ii.,  ch.  ix.  (note). 

2  Cf.  Acts,  written  partly  by  Perpetua  herself. 


144         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN  THE 

of  the  Church  at  Carthage.1  Thrown  into 
prison,  and  tried  in  the  sorest  way  a  woman 
can  be,  through  the  entreaties  of  her  aged 
father,  and  the  tenderest  appeals  to  her 
motherhood,  she  yet,  through  all,  remained 
constant.  With  her  perished  four  others, 
one  of  them,  Felicitas,  a  slave.  Here,  again, 
high-born  and  humble  receive  together  the 
baptism  of  blood.  In  the  life  of  Origen,  to 
name  other  instances,  we  remember  grate- 
fully that  "  certain  lady,  of  great  wealth  and 
distinction,"  in  Alexandria,  who  showed  him 
kindness  after  his  father's  martyrdom2  ;  that 
other  wealthy  lady  Juliana,  in  whose  house 
he  was  sheltered  in  Cappadocia3 ;  and  his 
friend,  Ambrose,  himself  afterwards  a  martyr 
for  Christ,  who,  out  of  his  abundance,  fur- 
nished  him  with   books,  scribes,    shorthand 

1  Or  Tuburbium.  2  Eus.  vi.  2. 

3  Ibid.,  vi.  17.  Palladius  supplements  this  notice 
on  the  authority  of  an  entry  in  a  book  by  Origen 
himself. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     145 

writers,  and   every  facility  for   pursuing  his 
Biblical  studies.1 

The  name  of  Origen  recalls  attention  to 
another  series  of  facts  intimately  bearing  on 
our  present  subject.  I  refer  to  the  relations 
subsisting  between  Christianity  and  the 
Imperial  Court.  These,  probably,  had  never 
quite  ceased  from  the  days  of  the  Flavians, 
but  we  find  them  renewed  towards  the  close 
of  the  second  century,  and  perpetuating 
themselves  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
third.  A  commencement  is  made  in  the 
reign  of  Commodus,  the  unworthy  son  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  Marcia,  the  favourite 
mistress  of  this  emperor,  was  the  foster- 
daughter  of  a  Christian  presbyter,  and,  even 
in  her  equivocal  position,  seems  to  have  re- 
tained her  interest  in  Christianity.  On  one 
occasion  we  know  of,  she  was  instrumental 
in  procuring  by  her  intercession  the  release 

1  Eus.  vi.  18,  23. 
10 


146         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

of  certain  Christian  confessors  from  the 
Sardinian  mines.1  There  would  seem,  in 
fact,  to  have  been  in  this  reign  a  general  move- 
ment in  the  upper  classes  towards  the  new 
faith.  Eusebius  records  that  "  many  of  those 
highly  distinguished  in  wealth  and  family, 
with  their  whole  house  and  kindred,  turned 
to  their  salvation"2;  and  Irenaeus  speaks 
freely  of  the  faithful  in  the  Imperial  palace.3 
Septimus  Severus,  the  next  important  em- 
peror, was,  as  we  saw,  at  first  not  unfavour- 
ably affected  to  the  Christian  religion.  His 
Syrian  wife,  Julia  Domna,  cultured  and 
syncretistic  in  spirit,  seems  also  to  have 
been  friendly.4     Their  son,  Caracalla,  had  a 

1  Hippolytus,  Phil.  ix.  12. 

2  Eus.  v.  21.  To  this  reign  belongs  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  senator  Apollonius  referred  to  above. 

3  Adv.  Hcer.  iv.  30. 

4  Cf .  Uhlhorn's  Conflict  of  Christ,  p.  333  (E.T.) ; 
Baur's  History  of  Church,  II.  p.  207  (E.T.)  ;  Bigg's 
Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria,  p.  244.  See  next 
lecture. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     147 

Christian  nurse — was  fed,  as  was  said,  on 
Christian  milk.1  Julia's  influence  may  be 
regarded  as  propagating  itself  in  the  reigns 
of  the  succeeding  emperors.  We  find 
Hippolytus  addressing  a  treatise  to  Julia 
Aquila,  the  second  wife  of  the  infamous 
Elagabulus.2  Julia  Mammaea,  niece  of  Julia 
Domna,  mother  of  the  next  emperor,  Alex- 
ander Severus,  who  exercised  a  large  control 
in  the  government,  was  deeply  interested  in 
Christianity,  and  sent  for  Origen  to  Antioch 
to  confer  with  her.  3  Alexander  himself 
honoured  Christ  by  placing  His  statue  in  his 
private  chapel  along  with  those  of  other 
sages,  and  had  His  Golden  Rule  inscribed  on 
the  walls  of  his  palace  and  public  monu- 
ments. 4     A  succeeding  emperor,    Philip   the 

1  Tert,  Ad  Scap.  4. 

2  See  Moeller,    Church   History,  I.  pp.  191,    201, 
(E.T.).  3  Eus.  vi.  21. 

4  Lampridius,  Sev.  Alex.    Cf.  in  Gieseler  (I.  p.  192, 
E.T.)  and  Neander,  I.  p.  173  (Bohn). 


148         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Arabian,  was  so  favourable  to  Christianity 
that  he  was  publicly  reputed  to  be  a 
Christian.1  Origen  is  related  to  have  had 
correspondence  with  him  and  with  his  wife 
Severa.2  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  could 
write  of  the  early  years  of  Valerian,  even 
after  the  Church  had  passed  through  the 
fiery  trial  of  the  Decian  persecution,  that 
none  of  the  emperors  before  him  had  been 
so  favourably  and  kindly  disposed  to  the 
Christians,  "  not  even  those  who  were  openly 
said  to  be  Christians"  (Philip) ;  and  that" his 
house  was  filled  with  pious  persons,  and  was, 
indeed,  a  Church  (IkkXWg)  of  the  Lord."3 
A  new  spirit,  in  fact,  began  to  manifest  itself 
in  this  period  towards  Christianity,  in  con- 

1  Eus.  vi.  34.  Cf.  in  Gieseler,  I.  p.  192.  Some 
modern  writers,  as  Aube,  Moeller,  favour  this  view. 
Cf.  Moeller,  Church  History,  I.  p.  192  (E.T.). 

2  Eus.  vi.  36. 

3  Ibid.  vii.  10.  Valerian  subsequently  became  a 
persecutor. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     149 

trast  with  the  spirit  of  contempt  which  had 
formerly  prevailed,  the  spirit  of  eclecticism 
and  toleration — the  intellectual  counterpart 
of  which  is  seen  in  Neo-Platonism.1  Under 
these  circumstances,  Origen  could  boast  that 
some  addition  was  made  to  the  numbers  of 
the  Christians  every  day,  and  that  in  the 
multitude  of  believers  were  numbered  "not 
only  rich  men,  but  persons  of  rank  and  delicate 
and  high-born  ladies."2  Eusebius  also  speaks 
of  "  the  wealthy  and  opulent "  in  the  Church 
of  Rome  at  the  time  of  the  Novatian  schism  3 
in  the  middle  of  the  century. 

It  was  clearly  enough  perceived,  however, 
by  thoughtful  men  like  Origen,  that  the  final 
victory  would  not  come  without  a  terrible 
closing  struggle.  This  time  of  testing  soon 
arrived.  The  Decian  persecution  broke  over 
the     Church,     discovering,     as     before,    the 

1  See  Lect.  III.       2  Contra  Celsum,  vii.  26;  III.  9. 
3  Eus.  vi.  43. 


150         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

numbers  of  persons  of  wealth  and  rank 
within  its  pale,  but  proving  also  the  frailty 
of  their  profession.  The  well-known  passage 
of  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  gives  us  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  behaviour  of  these  apostates. 
When  brought  to  the  altar,  after  the  edict 
had  actually  been  promulgated,  "all  were 
greatly  alarmed,"  he  says,  "  and  many  of  the 
more  eminent  came  immediately  forward  in 
their  fear ;  others,  holding  public  offices,  were 
drawn  on  by  their  duties  ;  others  were  urged 
on  by  those  about  them.  When  called  by 
name,  they  approached  the  impure  and 
unholy  sacrifices,  some  pale  and  trembling, 
not  as  sacrificers,  but  as  if  they  were  them- 
selves to  be  sacrifices  and  victims  to  the 
idols,  so  that  they  were  jeered  at  by  the 
large  multitude  that  stood  around,  as  it  was 
plain  to  all  that  they  were  afraid  either  to 
die  or  to  sacrifice  ;  but  some  advanced  more 
readily  to  the  altars,  stoutly  asserting  that 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     151 

they  had  never  before  been  Christians." J 
More  eloquent  than  any  statement  of  Church 
historians,  however,  is  the  language  of  the 
persecuting  edicts  themselves.  That  of 
Valerian,  after  he  had  assumed  the  role  of 
a  persecutor  (A.D.  258),  is  specially  directed 
against  office-bearers  and  persons  of  high 
rank  in  the  Church. 2  It  ordains  "  that 
bishops,  presbyters,  and  deacons  be  imme- 
diately put  to  death  ;  that  senators  and  men 
of  rank  and  knights  be  first  of  all  deprived 
of  their  rank  and  property,  and  then,  their 
means  being  taken  away,  if  they  still  continue 
to  be  Christians,  be  also  punished  with  death ; 
that  matrons,  after  forfeiting  their  property 
be  banished ;  that  those  in  Caesar's  house- 
hold who  have  formerly  made  profession  of 
Christianity,  or  now  profess  it,  be  treated  as 
Caesar's  property,  and,  being  put  in  chains, 

1  Eus.  vi.  41. 

2  It  is  given  in  Cyprian's   Epistle    to    Successus 
(Ep.  80). 


152         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

be  distributed  among  the  Imperial  estates." 
We  are,  accordingly,  not  surprised  to  learn 
from  Dionysius  that  amongst  the  victims 
of  this  persecution  were  "  men  and  women, 
young  and  old,  young  virgins  and  aged 
matrons,  soldiers  and  private  persons  of 
every  kind  and  every  age."  He  himself  was 
an  example  of  one  who  had  repeatedly  had 
experience  of  "confiscations,  proscriptions, 
plunderings  of  goods,  loss  of  dignities."  * 

The  forty  years'  peace  which  elapsed 
between  this  persecution  and  the  last  decisive 
struggle  in  the  Diocletian  persecution  fur- 
nishes us  with  few  details,  yet  with  sugges- 
tive general  notices  of  the  continued  growth 
of  the  churches  in  numbers,  splendour,  and 
influence,  one  marked  outward  token  of  this 
prosperity   being    the    number    of  splendid 

1  Eus.  vii.  II.  As  respects  the  order  of  knights, 
Lanciani  mentions  that  hundreds  of  inscriptions  of 
persons  of  equestrian  rank  are  found  in  the  Cata- 
combs (p.  10). 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     153 

ecclesiastical  edifices  which  now  began  to 
be  erected.  We  read  of  Christian  governors 
of  provinces,  and  of  the  freedom  to  profess 
Christianity  granted  to  the  members  of  the 
Imperial  household — "wives,  and  children, 
and  servants."1  Mention  is  made  of  the 
multitudes  crowding  in  every  city  to  the 
houses  of  worship — "  on  whose  account," 
says  the  historian,  "  not  being  content  with 
the  ancient  buildings,  they  erected  spacious 
churches  from  the  foundation  in  all  the 
cities." 2  That  this  is  not  an  exaggeration 
is  shown  by  the  great  church  in  Nicomedia, 
which  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the 
architectural  ornaments  of  this  city — the  seat 
of  the  Court  at  the  time — and  by  the  later 
edicts  for  the  demolition  of  the  churches 
generally.3  Yet  instances  exist  to  show  that 
Christians  were  not  entirely  safe  even  during 

1  Eus.  viii.  1.     Instances  are  given.  2  Ibid. 

3  Lactantius,  De  Morte  Per.  12  ;  Eus.,  Ecc.  Hist.  viii.  2. 


154         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

this  interval  of  peace.  We  know  at  least  of 
one  illustrious  Roman  officer  at  Caesarea  who 
suffered  death  for  his  faith ;  and  we  read 
also  of  how  one  Astyrius,  a  Roman  of 
senatorial  rank,  in  high  favour  with  the 
Emperor,  and  well  known  to  all  for  his 
noble  birth  and  wealth,  took  the  body  of 
the  martyred  man,  and,  covering  it  with  a 
splendid  and  costly  dress,  gave  it  becoming 
burial.1 

The  great  accession  of  members  and  out- 
wardly prosperous  condition  of  the  Church 
at  this  time  is  beyond  dispute,  and  the 
incidents  of  the  last  and  most  dreadful  of 
the  persecutions  only  furnish  new  corrobora- 
tions of  it.  During  the  first  nineteen  years 
of  his  reign,  Diocletian  had  Christians  every- 
where about  his  person.  Some  of  the  officers 
of  highest  rank  in  his  palace  were  Christians2; 

1  Eus.  vii.  15,  16. 

5  Ibid.  viii.  6.     Such  was  Lucianus.  the  chief  cham- 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     155 

his  own  wife  and  daughter,  Prisca  and 
Valeria,  were  believed  to  be  Christians.1 
The  first  persecuting  edict  was  directed 
against  the  church  buildings  and  the  Scrip- 
tures rather  than  against  persons ;  but  it 
ordains  also  that  those  holding  honourable 
positions  were  to  be  degraded,  and  servants 
in  the  household,  if  they  persisted  in  their 
Christianity,  were  to  be  made  slaves.2  What 
one  notices  with  satisfaction  in  this  per- 
secution is  the  superior  steadfastness  of 
believers  in  the  higher  orders,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  frailty  of  this  class  on 
previous  occasions.  Many  of  the  most 
illustrious  martyrs  of  Diocletian's  reign  are 
persons  of  exalted  rank.  Such  were  some 
of  the  great  officers  of  the  palace,  of  whose 
sufferings  and   constancy   a   special   account 

berlain,  to  whom  Theonas,  Bishop  of  Alexandria, 
wrote  a  letter  of  advice.  See  the  account  in 
Neander,  I.  pp.  197-9  (Bohn). 

1  Lact.  15.  -  Eus.  viii.  2. 


156         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

is  given.1  Such  were  the  martyrs  of  the 
Thebais,  many  of  them,  as  Eusebius  tells, 
"distinguished  for  wealth,  and  noble  birth 
and  honour,  and  excelling  in  philosophy  and 
learning  "  2  ;  such  was  Adanetus,  of  Phrygia, 
a  man  of  noble  Italian  family,  "who  had 
been  advanced  through  every  honour  by  the 
emperors,"  and  had  reputably  filled  the 
highest  offices  3 ;  such  were  certain  ladies 
of  Antioch,  "illustrious  above  all  for  wealth, 
for  family,  for  reputation  "4 — and  many  more 
of  whom  these  are  but  examples.  A  striking 
instance,  referred  to  in  the  previous  lecture, 
is  that  of  a  town  in  Phrygia  which  was 
burned  with  all  its  inhabitants  because  its 
whole  population,  including  the  governors 
and  magistrates,  with  all  the  men  of  rank, 
had  confessed  themselves  Christians,  and 
refused   to    sacrifice.5      It   may   be    remem- 

1  Eus.  viii.  6.         2  Ibid.  viii.  9.         3  Ibid.  viii.  11. 
4  Ibid.  viii.  12.      s  Ibid.  viii.  11. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     157 

bered  also  how  the  Council  of  Elvira,  in 
Spain,  in  306,  shows  us  great  landowners 
and  persons  in  the  highest  magistracies  in 
the  membership  of  the  Church. 

There  is  only  one  other  line  of  evidence  to 
which,  in  closing,  I  would  advert  for  a  moment, 
as  bearing  on  this  question  of  the  penetration 
by  the  gospel  of  the  higher  ranks  of  society. 
It  is  that  furnished  by  the  social  station  of 
the  great^  teachers  of  the  Church.  That 
these,  like  the  earlier  Apologists,  were  men 
of  education  and  refinement  is  a  fact  which 
of  itself  implies  a  standing  sufficiently  high 
to  secure  for  them  the  advantages  of  a  liberal 
training.  But  we  have  only  to  recall  the  facts 
of  their  lives  to  be  reminded  that  many  of 
them  in  reality  sprang  from  families  of  wealth 
and  distinction.  Tertullian  was  the  son  of 
a  proconsular  centurion — no  very  high  rank 
perhaps — but  enough  to  obtain  for  him  the 
benefits   of  a  legal  and  rhetorical  education. 


158         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

We  are  probably  right  in  saying  that  Cle- 
ment of  Alexandria  was  the  son  of  wealthy 
parents.  His  culture  and  extensive  travels 
would  seem  to  imply  as  much.  Cyprian,  we 
know,  was  of  patrician  descent,  and  inherited 
large  possessions.  Two  other  distinguished 
teachers  of  the  third  century — both  pupils 
of  Origen  —  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  and 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  were  of  wealthy 
and  honourable  families.  So  was  Pam- 
philus  of  Caesarea,  the  friend  of  Eusebius, 
and  founder  of  the  famous  library  in  that 
city.  It  is  going  beyond  our  present  limits 
to  extend  our  view  to  the  fourth  century,  but 
if  we  do  so  we  have  such  conspicuous  in- 
stances as  Basil  the  Great  of  Caesarea  and 
his  brother  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  as  Ambrose 
of  Milan,  as  Chrysostom  of  Antioch,  and 
many  others  that  might  be  named.  I  trust, 
however,  I  have  already  said  enough  to  show 
the  baselessness  of  the  theory  that  the  bulk 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     159 

of  the  adherents  of  early  Christianity  were 
drawn  from  "  the  dregs  of  the  populace," 
and  to  demonstrate  that  the  gospel  from 
its  earliest  beginnings  in  no  slight  degree 
affected  the  higher  as  well  as  the  humbler 
classes  of  society. 


THE  INTENSIVE  OR  PENETRATIVE 
INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  ON 
THE  THOUGHT  AND  LIFE  OF  THE 
EMPIRE. 


1 1 


The  instreaming  of  Pagan  influences  on  Christianity 
has  for  its  counterpart  the  outstreaming  of 
Christian  influences  on  Pagan  society — These 
also  ordinarily  under-estimated  —  Silence  of 
Pagan  writers  :  what  it  means — Christianity  and 
culture  in  the  First  Century — New  Testament 
Epistles — Seneca  and  the  Gospel — Rise  and 
character  of  Apology  in  the  Second  Century — 
The  literary  attack  on  Christianity  :  Celsus — 
Significance  and  spread  of  Gnosticism — The 
Pagan  ethical  revival  in  Second  Century  — 
Pagan  preaching — Influence  of  Christianity  on 
these — The  Mysteries — The  old  Catholic  Fathers 
— Rise  of  Neo-Platonism — Effects  of  Christianity 
on  morals  and  legislation — Conclusion. 


102 


LECTURE    III 

THE  INTENSIVE  OR  PENETRATIVE  IN- 
FLUENCE OF  CHRISTIANITY  ON  THE 
THOUGHT     AND     LIFE     OF     THE     EMPIRE 

PROFESSOR  HARNACK  has  said: 
"  The  Catholic  Church  is  that  form 
of  Christianity  in  which  every  element  of 
the  ancient  world  has  been  successively 
assimilated  which  Christianity  could  in  any 
way  take  up  into  itself  without  utterly  losing 
itself  in  the  world.  .  .  .  Christianity  has 
throughout  sucked  the  marrow  of  the 
ancient    world,    and    assimilated     it." l       If 

x  Art.  on  "  Research   in   Early  Church   History " 
in  Cont.  Rev.,  Aug.  i886;  p.  234. 
163 


164         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

this  dictum  of  Harnack's  is  correct,  the 
counter  thesis  must  hold  good,  that  Chris- 
tianity must  have  penetrated  deeply  into 
the  thought  and  life'  of  the  ancient  world 
before  such  assimilation  was  possible.  Be- 
fore, for  instance,  Christianity  could  suck 
the  marrow  out  of  Greek  philosophy,  as 
Harnack  supposes  it  did,  it  must  have 
penetrated  into  minds  possessed  with*  the 
spirit  and  ideas  of  that  philosophy — must 
have  entered  deeply  into  the  circles  and 
schools  of  culture.  I  am  to  ask  in  the 
present  lecture  how  far  this  penetrative 
process  went,  and  what  traces  it  has  left 
of  itself  in  history. 
\  Our  previous  inquiries  have  an  important 
bearing  on  the  subject  now  to  be  investi- 
gated. If  it  were  the  case  that  Christianity 
had  only  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the 
population  in  its  following, — if  its  adherents 
were   collected   chiefly   from    the    base    and 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     165 

servile  classes, — if  it  was  practically  unheeded 
and  well-nigh  totally  despised  by  persons  of 
higher  station  and  better  culture  for  at  least 
the  first  two  centuries,  it  would  be  natural 
to  conclude  that  traces  of  its  influence  on 
society  would  be  scarcely  perceptible,  and 
that  what  look  like  such  traces  must  be  ex- 
plained in  some  other  way.  We  must  hold 
witk  Friedlander  that  "it  is  scarcely  think- 
able that  in  the  heathen  world  before  the 
time  of  Severus,  the  world -historical  impor- 
tance of  the  new  religion,  so  little  regarded 
and  so  contemptuously  judged  of,  was  even 
so  much  as  suspected."  *  But  if,  as  I  have 
endeavoured  to  show,  the  case  was  far  dif- 
ferent,— if  Christianity  had  both  a  larger 
following,  and  was  drawing  its  adherents 
from  the  higher  and  educated  classes  to  a 
much  greater  extent  than  is  commonly  as- 
sumed,— then  we  are  prepared  to  entertain  the 
1  Sittengeschichte  Roms,  III.  p.  536. 


166         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

expectation  that  the  traces  of  its  action  on 
the   Pagan   world   will   be   neither    few   nor 
v  slight. 

There  is  a  point  of  considerable  moment 
in  this  connection  to  which  it  is  desirable  that 
attention  should  be  directed  at  the  outset. 
Much  stress  is  often  laid  {e.g.  by  Friedlander1), 
in  disproof  of  any  considerable  influence  of 
Christianity  on  the  thought  and  life  of, the 
time,  on  the  silence  of  Pagan  writers  respect- 
ing the  new  religion.  How,  it  is  asked,  if 
Christianity  was  so  powerful  a  factor  as  we 
hold  it  to  have  been  in  the  second  century, 
should  a  philosophic  writer  like  Marcus 
Aurelius,  for  example,  pass  it  by  with  only 
one   contemptuous   reference?     This   silence 

1  See  his  argument,  Ibid.,  p.  533.  "  Christians  and 
Christianity,"  he  says,  "  till  near  the  end  of  the  second 
century,  are,  in  the  classic  literature,  only  very  seldom 
and  incidentally,  indifferently  and  contemptuously 
mentioned."  Similarly  Addis,  in  Christianity  and  the 
Roman  Empire,  p.  51,  "  Epictetus  and  M.  Aurelius 
dismiss  it  with  a  scornful  phrase,"  &c. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     167 

of  heathen  writers  is  not  quite  so  great  as  is 
assumed — Pliny  was  not  silent,  nor  Fronto, 
nor  Celsus — but  even  if  the  fact  were  as 
stated,  there  is  one  important  consideration 
which  greatly  takes  away  the  point  from  the 
argument.  Nothing  is  better  ascertained 
than  that  it  was  the  fashion  of  heathen 
writers,  even  of  those  who  were  best  ac- 
quainted with  Christianity,  to  show_._their 
contempt _for  it,  by  deliberately  dissembling 
their  knowledge  of  it,  and  refraining  from  any 
mention  of  it  in  their  works.  Prof.  Ramsay 
has  noticed  this  in  regard  to  Dion  Cassius, 
who  wrote  in  the  third  century,  when  it  will 
not  be  denied  that  Christianity  was  a  grow- 
ing and  formidable  force,  but  who  seems 
studiously  to  have  refrained  from  referring  to 
the  Christians  in  his  history  ;  and  to  ^lius 
Aristides,  the  famous  rhetorician,  a  contem- 
porary of  Polycarp  under  the  Antonines, 
who  likewise  makes  a  point  of  not  mention- 


168         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

ing  the  Christians  (testified  to  be  so  numerous 
and  influential  in  Asia  Minor  by  Pliny),  but 
speaks  of  them  generally  as  "  those  in  Pales- 
tine." "  It  was  apparently  a  fashion  and  an 
affectation,"  Prof.  Ramsay  says,  "among  a 
certain  class  of  Greek  men  of  letters  about 
160-240  to  ignore  the  existence  of  the  Chris- 
tians, and  to  pretend  to  confuse  them  with 
the  Jews."  l  It  was  not,  however,  I  would 
observe,  a  fashion  confined  to  this  period,  and 
to  Greek  writers  ;  and  did  not  apply  only  to 
the  Christians,  though  in  their  case  it  was 
specially  noticeable.  Boissier  warns  us  against 
being  deceived  by  the  grand  airs  of  disdain 
and  ignorance  which  the  Romans  affected  for 
everything  which  was  removed  from  their 
habits  and  traditions.2     "  The  conspiracy  of 

1  The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  264.  Fried- 
lander  also  has  no  doubt  that  the  passage  in  Aristides 
refers  to  the  Christians  (III.  p.  533). 

2  La  Religion  Romaine,  II.  p.  59,  4th  edit.  (bk.  ii. 
c  h.  5). 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     169 

silence,"  as  this  writer  names  it,  was  main- 
tained, astonishing  to  say,  quite  as  effectively 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries — long  after 
Christianity  had  decisively  triumphed  in  the 
State — as  in  the  second.  "  Paganism,"  says 
Dean  Merivale,  "  abstained  studiously  from 
any  allusion  to  the  place  which  Christianity 
now  actually  held  in  public  life.  It  made  an 
effort,  a  laborious  effort,  to  pass  over  the 
phenomenon  in  complete  silence.  Through- 
out the  few  remains  of  popular  literature  of 
the  age  of  Constantine  we  can  trace,  it  seems, 
no  single  reference  to  the  existence  of  the 
Christian  Church  or  Creed.  Even  at  the  end 
of  the  century,  the  poet  Claudian,  in  versi- 
fying, as  is  his  wont,  all  the  chief  events  of 
contemporary  history,  has  not  one  word  to 
say  of  the  new  religion,  which  in  his  day  had 
effected  a  complete  revolution  both  in  Church 
and  State." T  And  Claudian  here  was  no 
1  Epochs  of  Early  Church  Hist.,  p.  6. 


170         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

exception.  Speaking  of  Macrobius,  by  whom 
"the  name  of  Christianity  is  not  even  once 
pronounced,"  Boissier  remarks,  "  Our  surprise 
is  redoubled  when  we  find  the  same  silence 
preserved  by  nearly  all  the  Pagan  writers  of 
this  time  (fourth  and  fifth  centuries),  by 
grammarians,  orators,  poets,  and  even  his- 
torians, though  it  appears  singular  that  they 
should  omit,  in  a  narrative  of  the  past,  such 
an  event  as  the  triumph  of  the  Church. 
Neither  Aurelius  Victor  nor  Eutropius  men- 
tions the  conversion  of  Constantine,  and  it 
would  seem,  to  read  them,  that  all  the  princes 
of  the  fourth  century  persevered  in  the  prac- 
tice of  the  ancient  worship.  It  is  certainly 
not  chance  which  leads  them  all  to  avoid 
mentioning  the  name  of  a  religion  which  they 
hate ;  it  is  a  plot,  a  party  move,  the  meaning 
of  which  can  deceive  nobody."  x     These  un- 

1  La  Fin  du  Paganisme,  II.  p.  243.     Cf.  also  Light- 
foot,  Philifrpians,  pp.  28-29. 


EARLY    PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     171 

questionable  facts  do  away,  I  think,  in  great 
part  with  the  relevancy  of  any  argument 
derived  from  the  mere  silence  or  contempt  of 
Pagan  writers.  If  M.  Aurelius  did  not  men- 
tion the  Christians,  it  is  not,  as  we  shall 
immediately  see,  because  he  did  not  know 
enough  about  them,  but  because  he  did  not 
desire  to  mention  them,  or  willed  to  ignore 
them. 

That      even      in      the      Apostolic      Age  * 
Christianity     had     entered     as     a     ferment  , 
into   minds    possessed    of    some    degree   of* 
literary    and    philosophical    culture    is    evi-' 
dent    from    the    phenomena    met    with    in « 
several   of  the  Apostolic   Churches,  as  well  ■ 
as    from    the    cast    and     character    of    the' 
New    Testament    writings    themselves.      In 
Corinth,  and  Ephesus,  and  Colosse,  e.g.t  the 
earlier   danger   to  which   the   Churches  had 
been  exposed,  and   to  which   the   Churches 
in     Galatia     succumbed,    of    being     drawn 


172         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

back  into  the  web  of  legal  bondage, 
had  evidently  given  place  to  a  new  and 
subtler  peril — that  of  the  gospel  being 
brought  into  dependence  on  a  philosophy- 
foreign  to  its  nature,  and  spoiled  by  being 
mixed  up  with  human  speculations,  and 
set  forth  in  the  trickery  of  an  artificial 
rhetoric.  It  is  easy,  if  we  recall  the  scenes 
of  agitation  and  disputation  amidst  which 
the  gospel  was  introduced  into  some  of 
these  Churches — the  conflicts,  for  instance, 
around  the  judgment  seat  of  Gallio,1  or 
the  two  years  daily  disputation  in  the 
school  of  one  Tyrannus  at  Ephesus,2  with 
its  sequel  in  the  burning  of  the  magic  books 
— to  realise  how  this  should  be  so.  In 
Corinth  it  was  the  alliance  with  Greek 
wisdom  and  heathen  rhetoric  that  was 
sought ;  in  Colosse  it  was  amalgamation 
with  Essenian  and  incipient  Gnostic  ele- 
1  Acts  xviii.  12-17.  2  Ibid.  xix.  9,  10,  19. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     173 

ments  that  was  attempted * ;  but  in  either 
case  the  result  was  the  same — a  departure 
from  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  the  gospel 
— an  exaltation  of  knowledge  over  piety — 
and  a  straying  into  various  paths  of  intel- 
lectual heresy.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
also  how  the  Apostle  deals  with  these 
aberrations — not  by  denying  the  value  of 
knowledge,  or  the  legitimacy  of  the  claim 
of  the  mind  for  satisfaction  in  the  sphere 
of  intelligence,  but  by  affirming  the  power 
of  Christianity  to  develop  a  aocj>la  of  its 
own,  and  by  setting  in  their  right  rela- 
tions knowledge  and  love.2  It  is  not 
wisdom  as  such,  but  "  the  wisdom  of  the 
world "  against  which  the  Apostle's  polemic 
is  directed.  But  the  New  Testament 
writings  themselves,  in  their  very  form  and 
structure,  in  many  instances  bear  witness  to 

1  Cf.  Lightfoot's  Colosslans. 
-  1  Cor.  ii.  6,  7  ;  viii.  1. 


174         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  intellectual  atmosphere  in  which  they 
were  produced.  The  Pauline  Epistles,  with 
their  deep  thought,  their  closely-knit  reason- 
ing, and  their  views  of  truth  reaching  out 
into  the  eternities  before  and  after,  were,  on 
the  face  of  them,  not  intended  for  illiterates 
or  weaklings ;  the  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians 
and  Colossians,  with  their  developments  of 
the  cosmological  aspects  of  redemption  and 
their  implied  references  to  Gnostic  specula- 
tions, discover  that  they  are  written  in  view 
of  active  heretical  tendencies  ;  an  unmistak- 
able Alexandrian  stamp  rests  on  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews ;  and  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
however  profoundly  separated  in  substance 
from  Philonism,  yet  shows,  I  cannot  but 
think,  in  the  shape  in  which  its  prologue 
is  cast,  a  desire  to  create  a  bridge  between 
the  current  Logos  speculations  and  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

Accepting    these    facts    as    indications    of 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     175 

the  subtle  yet  energetic  manner  in  which 
Christianity  was  engaging"  the  interest,  and 
penetrating  the  thought,  of  intelligent  circles 
in  the  greater  heathen  communities,  I  go  on 
to  inquire  whether  evidences  of  this  can  be 
discovered   outside   the    New   Testament   in 


the  general  Pagan  world  of  the  first  century. 

There  is  no  a  priori  reason  why  they  should 

not   be,   for,   as    Boissier    remarks,   "If   De 

Rossi    is    right,   it    is    necessary   to   assume 

that   Christianity  was  less  unknown  to   the 

rich   and  lettered  in   the   first  century  than 

is  supposed."  l     This  inquiry  has  commonly 

been   associated    with  the   name   of  Seneca, 

in  the  reign  of  Nero — and  not  unnaturally, 

*  for  in  Seneca's  writings  we  have  at  once  the 

1  best  specimens  of  the  ethical  thought  of  that 

'time,  and  the  most  singular  approximations 

'  in    sentiment    and   expression    to    the    new 

•ideas  introduced  by  Christianity.     Whether, 

1  La  Rel.  Romaine,  II.  p.  62  (4th  edit.). 


176         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

or  how  far,  these  resemblances  are  due  to 
any  measure  of  acquaintance  with  the  new 
religion — to  any  direct  or  indirect  influence 
of  the  gospel  spirit  —  or,  again,  are  an 
independent  development  from  Stoicism,  is 
a  question  on  which  opinions  are,  and  pro- 
bably will  always  be,  widely  divided,  and 
which  will  tend  to  be  determined  according 
to  the  presuppositions  with,  which  the  in- 
quirer sets  out.1  We  would  not  depreciate 
the  splendid  services  which  Stoicism,  with 
its  stern  and  elevated,  yet  haughty  and  im- 
passive, doctrine  of  virtue,  its  notion  of  a 
unity  of  mankind  based  on  reason,  and  its 
cosmopolitan  ideals,  rendered  as  a  prepara- 
tion for  Christianity ;  and  we  must  not 
overlook     the     fact     that,     notwithstanding 

1  Among  others  the  question  is  discussed  by 
Fleury,  Troplong,  Aubertin,  Lightfoot,  Hasenclever, 
Schmidt,  Friedlander,  Boissier,  and  Farrar.  The 
fullest  discussion  in  recent  writers  is  by  Boissier 
and  Lightfoot. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     177 

apparent  coincidences  with  Christian  ideas 
and  phrases,  Seneca's  thinking  is  still,  at 
bottom,  unchangeably  and  even  crudely 
Stoical.1  At  first,  too,  it  must  be  granted, 
the  presumption  is  strongly  against"  any 
contact  of  Seneca  with  Christianity.  The 
fictitious  correspondence  of  the  philoso- 
pher with  St.  Paul  is  long  since  given 
up  ;  there  is  no  evidence  that  Seneca  ever 
saw  or  heard  of  the  Apostle,  though  the 
possibility  of  such  knowledge  cannot  be 
denied 2 ;  the  fact  that  it  was  his  brother  j 
Gallio  before  whom  Paul  appeared  in  I 
Corinth  affords  but  a  slender  ground  for 
supposing  that  the  details  of  this  incident ' 
may  have  reached  Seneca ;  while  the  cir- 
cumstance 3  that  Seneca,  when  Paul  reached 

1  See  the  convincing  evidence  of  this,  e.g.,  in 
Lightfoot's  dissertation  on  St.  Paul  and  Seneca  in 
his  Philippians. 

2  The  possibility  is  allowed  by  Friedlander,  &c, 

3  Urged  by  Hasenclever. 

12 


178         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

Rome,  was  already  a  man  of  sixty  years  of 
age,  whose  philosophical  "  Weltanschauung  " 
may  be  presumed  to  have  been  completed, 
and  whose  death  fell  some  four  years  later 
(a.d.  65),  is  certainly  of  considerable  weight. 
It  is  not  contended,  however,  except  by  a 
few,  that  Seneca's  philosophical  view  ever 
was  fundamentally  changed.  But  against 
these  negative  considerations  there  are 
others  of  a  more  positive  character  which 
may  fairly  be  placed.  Paul  was  not  the 
only  channel  through  which  Seneca  may 
have  derived  some  knowledge  of  the 
ethics  of  the  gospel.  The  Christians,  as 
we  saw  in  the  first  lecture,  were  by  no 
means  in  his  day  an  obscure  party  in 
Rome x ;  numbers  of  them  were  found  in 
the  palace,  and  among  the  domestics  of 
the  great  households,  including  probably 
Seneca's  own  ;  the  sage  was  in  the  habit 
1  Cf.  Lightfoot,  pp.  25,  33. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     179 

of  familiar  converse  with  his  slaves x ;  the 
recent  case  of  Pomponia  Graecina  must 
have  been  the  subject  of  much  conversa- 
tion in  the  highest  circles 2 ;  the  bonds, 
and  no  doubt  the  preaching  of  the 
Apostle  were  bruited  throughout  the 
Prsetorium  and  widely  elsewhere,  and,  in 
Lightfoot's  words,  "  a  marvellous  activity " 
was  awakened  "  among  the  disciples  of 
the  new  faith."  3  The  Apostle  Paul  under- 
went a  public  trial,  at  which  Seneca  may 
have  been  present  4 ;  it  is  not  impossible 
that  even  the  incident  of  Gallio  may  have 
come  to  the  philosopher's  ears,  if  not 
otherwise,  yet  through  the  mention  of  it 
in     the     tales     told      of     this     remarkable 

1  Ep.  47.    Cf.  Lightfoot,  p.  300. 

2  See  last  lecture. 

3  Lightfoot,  p.  32.  Not  only  "  throughout  the 
Praetorium,"  but  "  to  all  the  rest."  "  In  every  way 
Christ  is  preached"  (Phil.  i.  13,  18). 

4  Thus  De  Rossi.  Friedlander  questions  his 
argument,   III.   p.   535. 


180         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

I  prisoner.  Dr.  Lightfoot  also  mentions,1 
I  what  his  quotations  bear  out,  that  it  is 
|  in  the  later  writings  of  Seneca  that  these 
I  approximations  to  Christian  ideas  are 
!  most   apparent.2 

All  this,  however,  does  not  amount  to 
positive  proof,  and  it  is  on  the  internal  evi- 
dence of  Seneca's  writings  that  the  deter- 
mination of  the  probabilities  of  this  question 
must   mainly   rest.       And   here,   though   on 

1  Pp.  291,  298. 

3  There  is  a  passage  in  Seneca's  Epistles  in  which 
he  describes  some  striking  influence  which  had 
produced  a  marked  change  in  him.  "  I  perceive, 
Lucilius,"  he  says,  "  that  I  am  not  only  amended, 
but  transformed.  ...  I  would  desire  to  share  with 
you  my  change  so  suddenly  experienced."  ("  In- 
telligo,  Lucili,  non  amendari  me  tantum,  sed  trans- 
figurari  .  .  .  cuperem  tecum  communicare  tarn 
subitam  mei  mutationem,"  i.  6.)  He  sends  his  friend 
the  books  which  had  wrought  this  change  in  him, 
with  the  passages  marked.  There  is  nothing,  cer- 
tainly, to  connect  these  books  with  Christian  writings, 
but  the  words  are  remarkable.  The  Epistles  to 
Lucilius  belong  to  the  last  years  of  his  life. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     183 

academic  grounds  it  will  always  be  possiblh 
to   say   about   as    much   against  as   for  any  | 

Christian    influence  on  Seneca,  I    think   the 

I 

reasons  for  presuming  some  degree  of  such 

J 

influence  are  exceedingly  strong.     It  remains 

the  fact,  account  for  it  as  we  may,  that  about 
the  middle  of  this  century  a  warmer  and 
more  tender  breath  begins  to  enter  into 
Stoicism,  which,  thereafter,  continuously 
animates  it ;  a  purer  conception  of  God's 
Fatherly  goodness  and  beneficent  Provi- 
dence ;  a  kindlier  and  gentler  tone  towards 
slaves  and  dependents  ;  something  like  a 
religious  trust  and  resignation  ;  a  more 
merciful  and  gracious  spirit  generally.  This 
is  first  perceptible,  as  far  as  I  know,  in  the 
writings  of  Seneca,  and  it  is  specially  per- 
ceptible in  his  later  years. *     We  know  of  one 

1  Troplong  remarks,  after  De  Maistre,  that  Seneca 
has  written  a  fine  book  on  Providence,  for  which 
there  was  not  even  a  name  at  Rome  in  the  time  of 
Cicero,  and    he    speaks    of    the    new    Stoicism  as 


!8o         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

^ause  which  would  produce  this  change, 
while  it  does  not  seem  to  follow  naturally 
from  the  Stoicism  of  the  remaining  parts  of 
Seneca's  system,  with  which  it  stands  rather 
in  striking  inconsistency.  We  are  driven 
back,  therefore,  on  an  analysis  of  the  sup- 
posed resemblances,  and  here,  after  making 
every  reasonable  deduction,  it  is  difficult  not 
to  agree  with  Dr.  Lightfoot,  as  the  result  of 
his  singularly  impartial  survey,  that  "  a  class 
of  coincidences  still  remains  .  .  .  which  can 
hardly  be  considered  accidental,"1  and  of 
which  some  measure  of  acquaintance  with 
Christianity — at  least  contact  with  its  spirit 
and  teaching  in  some  oral  form — affords  the 

"  enveloped,  as  it  were,  in  the  atmosphere  of  Chris- 
tianity."— L Influence  du  Christ.,  I.  ch.  4.  Cf.  Meri- 
vale's  Romans  under  the  Empire,  ch.  liv. 

1  P.  298.  Prof.  Ramsay,  in  his  Church  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  said,  "  that  Seneca  had  some  slight  acquaint- 
ance with  Christian  teaching  appears  to  be  plain 
from  his  writings "  (p.  273).  His  statement  in  St. 
Paul  the  Traveller  is  less  positive  (ch.  xv.). 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY     183 

most  natural  explanation.  I  do  not  attach 
much  importance  to  the  fact,  but  it  is  worth 
mentioning,  that  a  tomb  was  discovered  at 
Ostia  bearing  the  inscription,  "  Annseus 
Paulus  Petrus,"  showing  that  at  a  later  period 
(third  century)  persons  belonging  to  the  family 
of  Seneca,  possibly  descendants  of  freedmen, 
were  Christians.1  At  a  later  period,  the 
evidence  of  the  influence  of  Christianity  on 
this  transformed  Stoicism  is  clearer.  Epictetus, 
the  lame  slave,  and  noblest  representative 
of  second-century  Stoicism,  refers,  indeed, 
but  once  to  the  Christians  under  the  con- 
temptuous name  of  "  Galileans,"  yet  his 
discourses  breathe  a  remarkable  spirit  of 
elevated  piety,  and  Dr.  Lightfoot  finds  in 
them  parallels  with  the  Gospels  and  writings 

1  The  exact  words  are,  "  Ann^o.  Paulo.  Petro. 
Annseus.  Paulus."— De  iRossi  in  Bull,  di  Archeol. 
crist,  1867.  Cf.  Harnack  in  Princeton  Review,  July, 
1878,  p.  261  ;  Friedlander,  III.  p.  535.  Boissier, 
Lightfoot,  Renan,  &c,  refer  to  the  inscription. 


i&4        NEGLECTED  FACTORS  IN  THE 

of  Paul,  which  he  can  hardly  believe  to  be 
accidental.  On  one  such  coincidence  he 
remarks  that,  "  combined  with  the  numerous 
parallels  in  Seneca's  writings  collected  above, 
it  favours  the  supposition  that  our  Lord's 
discourses,  in  some  form  or  another,  were 
early  known  to  heathen  writers."1 

In  this  second  century,  to  which  we  now 
come,  we  reach  a  period  in  which  the  in- 
fluence of  Christianity  on  general  contem- 
porary thought  is  no  longer  a  matter  of 
precarious  inference,  but  is  attested  by  a 
wide  range  of  interesting  facts.  The  prin- 
cipal of  these  within  the  Church  are  the  rise 
of  a  vigorous  and  learned  Christian  Apology, 
and  the  development  in  every  form  and 
variety  of  the  heterogeneous  systems  which 
we  group  under  the  name  of  Gnosticism ; 
while,  in  the  Empire  itself,  phenomena  pre- 
sent themselves,  which,  as  I  believe,  are  inex- 
'  P.  316. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    185 

plicable  save  through  the  powerful  and  still 
under-estimated  penetration  by  Christianity 
of  the  Pagan  world  of  religion  and  culture. 
The  second  century  is  peculiarly  the  age 
of  the  Christian  Apology.  It  was  an  age 
intensely  literary,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  was 
marked  by  a  powerful  religious  and  ethical 
revival.  The  rhetorician,  the  philosopher,  the 
preacher,  the  teacher,  the  declaimer,  were 
everywhere.  Under  the  arrangements  in- 
stituted by  Vespasian  for  the  support  of 
lecturers  throughout  the  provinces  and  cities, 
literature  took  on  a  new  refinement,  schools 
and  universities  flourished,  and  thought  and 
speech  ran  naturally  into  the  forms  of 
rhetorical  and  philosophical  discourse  and 
argument.1"     In    harmony   with    this    spirit, 

1  See  the  sketches  of  this  age  in  Merivale's  Romans 
under  the  Empire,  chs.  lx.,  lxvi.;  and  in  Renan's  Marc- 
Aurele,  ch.  iii.,  "The  Reign  of  the  Philosophers." 
Cf.  also  Hatch's  Hibbert  Lectures,  Lects.  II.,  IV., 
"  Greek  Education,"  "  Greek  and  Christian  Rhetoric." 


1 86         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

fostered  by  the  patronage  of  Hadrian  and 
the  Antonines,  there  now  began  what  may 
be  succinctly  described  as  tlie  set  literary 
defence  of  Christianity.  I  do  not  concern 
myself  here  with  the  theology  of  the  Apo- 
logists, which,  in  my  view,  has  had  scant 
enough  justice  done  to  it  by  Engelhardt, 
Harnack,  and  their  followers,1  but  confine 
myself  to  what  is  implied  in  the  very  exis- 
tence of  such  an  Apology.  It  needs  no 
elaborate  proof  to  show  that  the  character 
of  the  age,  as  I  have  just  described  it,  power- 
fully affected  the  form  of  the  Apology. 
It  is  conceded  that  Justin  and  the  rest 
who  represent  this  phase  of  Christian  litera- 
ture treat  Christianity  predominatingly  as 
a   "  new   philosophy  "  2 — a    fact   which   goes 

1  To  this  school  the  Apologists  have  lost  the  real 
meaning  of  Christianity,  and  reduced  it  to  a  Moral- 
ismus,  or  rational  natural  theology — a  very  unfair 
representation. 

2  Cf.  e.g.,  Justin,  Dialogue,  8. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     187 

with  the  other,  that  most  of  these  writers 
were  philosophers  or  rhetoricians  by  train- 
ing and  profession.  The  literary  and  rhe- 
torical stamp  is,  therefore,  on  all  they 
write ;  the  learning,  the  arts,  the  dialectic 
of  the  schools,  the  skill  of  the  forensic 
pleader,  are  brought  into  play  by  them 
without  stint  or  disguise.  This  is  the  side 
of  the  Apology  commonly  dwelt  on,  but 
there  is  another.  The  very  appearance  of 
such  an  Apology  marks  a  great  step  in 
advance.  It  shows  not  only  that  the  spirit 
of  the  age  had  affected  Christianity,  but  also 
that  Christianity  had  pushed  its  way  into 
literary  circles,  and  was  attracting  their 
attention.  It  makes  clear  that  the  Christians 
were  beginning  to  have  confidence  in  them- 
selves, felt  their  growing  power,  were  no 
longer  content  to  be  "  a  dumb  folk,  mutter- 
ing in  corners,"1  as  their  enemies  scornfully 
1  Min.  Felix,  8,  31. 


i88         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

described  them,  but  were  emboldened  to 
present  their  case  in  the  open  court  of  public 
opinion,  and  to  challenge  a  verdict  in  their 
favour  on  the  ground  of  its  inherent  reason- 
ableness. There  is  a  high  tone  in  the  writers 
of  these  Apologies  which  the  reader  cannot 
mistake.  "  They  are  always  more  or  less 
conscious,"  as  Baur  says,  "  that  they  are  the 
soul  of  the  world,  the  substantial  centre  hold- 
ing everything  together,  the  pivot  on  which 
the  world's  history  revolved,  and  those  who 
alone  have  a  future  to  look  to.  .  .  .  When 
there  are  men,"  he  adds,  "  who  feel  them- 
selves in  this  way  to  be  the  soul  of  the  world, 
the  time  is  indisputably  approaching  when 
the  reins  of  the  government  of  the  world  will 
fall  unasked  into  their  hands." 2  The  point 
of  special  interest  to  us  in  this  connection  is 
that,  as  I  have  already  said,  these  writers — 
one  and  all — were  men  of  liberal  culture, 
History  of  Church,  II.  pp.  129,  131  (E.T.). 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     189 

of  wide  and  varied  learning,  several  of 
them  philosophers  by  profession  ;  and  they 
appear  at  a  great  variety  of  points  scattered 
over  the  surface  of  the  Church.  Aristides, 
the  author  of  the  earliest  complete  Apology 
we  possess — only  the  other  year  recovered — 
was  a  philosopher  of  Athens  ;  Athenagoras, 
in  the  reign  of  M.  Aurelius,  was  also  a 
philosopher  of  Athens  ;  from  Athens,  too, 
is  said  (though  this  is  doubtful)  to  have 
come  the  oldest  of  all  the  Apologies — 
that  of  Quadratus.  Justin  Martyr  passed 
through  the  Platonic  and  other  schools  of 
philosophy  in  his  search  for  the  truth, 
and  after  his  conversion,  continued  to  wear 
his  philosopher's  mantle,  and  to  dispute 
in  public  places  in  Ephesus  and  Rome 
with  any  who  would  hear  him.  A  man  of 
learning  like  himself,  though  of  widely  diffe- 
rent spirit,  was  his  disciple  Tatian  —  the 
author  of  the  recentlv  discovered  Diatessaron. 


iqo         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

TheojDhihiS  of  Antioch,  Melito  of  Sardis, 
Apolinarius  of  Hierapolis,  were  bishops,  but 
men  of  culture  and  philosophic  training,  well 
acquainted  with  heathen  systems.  Minucius 
Felix,  author  of  what  Renan  calls  "the  pearl 
of  the  apologetic  literature  of  the  reign  of 
M.  Aurelius,"1  was  a  Roman  advocate.  Ter- 
tullian's  learning,  and  legal  and  rhetorical 
gifts,  I  need  not  speak  of.  All  this  implies 
that  Christianity  had  penetrated  in  no  slight 
degree  into  the  schools,  and  was  exercising  a 
powerful  attraction  on  minds  athirst  for 
truth  and  certainty  on  the  great  questions 
of  existence,  as  well  as  drawing  into  its 
service  not  a  few  of  the  gifted  and  earnest 
men  of  culture  of  the  time. 

With  this   rise  of  a  literary  Apology  for 

Christianity  must  be  connected  a  yet  more 

significant  phenomenon  in  the  Pagan  world 

— the   rise   of    a    formal    literary   attack  on 

1  Marc-Aurele,  ch.  xxii, 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     191 

Christianity.  It_  may  be  taken  for  granted 
that  a  religion  must  already  have  attracted 
considerable  attention  before  the  ablest  lite- 
rary  men  jof  the  .time  sit  down  to  write 
elaborate  refutations  of  it  I  remarked  before 
that  if  M.  Aurelius  kept  silence  about  the 
Christians  it  was  not  because  he  did  not 
know  enough  regarding  them.  He  was  sur- 
rounded with  people  who  knew  them  well. 
Frqnto  of  Cirta,  the  celebrated  rhetorician, 
one  of  his  tutors,  and  an  intimate  correspon- 
dent and  friend,  wrote  a  bitter  attack  on  the 
Christians,  which  Renan  thinks  is  repro- 
duced in  the  Octavius  of  Minucius  Felix.1 
Diognetus,  another  of  the  tutors  of  Marcus, 
is  probably  the  same  to  whom  the  beautiful 
Epistle  to  Diognetus  is  addressed.  Herodes 
Atticus,  yet  another  of  his  tutors,  the 
wealthiest  man  and  most  famous  orator  of 
his  time,  had,  as  on  the  ground  of  a  Cata- 
1  Marc-Aurele,  ch.  xxii. 


192         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

comb  inscription  we  have  seen  reason  to 
believe,  a  daughter  who  was  a  Christian. 
Rusticus,  the  prefect  of  Marcus,  presided 
at  the  trial  of  Justin  and  his  companions. 
The  policy  of  silence  was,  besides,  no 
longer  observed.  I  have  just  mentioned 
Fronto's  written  attack.  Lucian  satirised 
the  Christians  in  his  witty  Peregrinus 
Proteus,  which  is  in  truth  an  honourable 
tribute  to  their  charity.  Celsus  wrote  his 
True  Word  (Aoyoe  a\r)6i]g)  in  refutation  of 
their  opinions.1  It  is  this  work  of  Celsus 
which,  above  all,  shows  how  important 
a  phenomenon  Christianity  was  now  felt 
to  be,  and  how  carefully  the  writings  of 
the  Christians  were  being  studied  by  some 
of  their  opponents.  Here  is  a  man  of 
undeniable   acuteness,    of  wide    reading,   of 

1  Celsus'  book  has  been  largely  reconstructed  by 
Keim  on  the  basis  of  the  extracts  and  notices  in 
Origen.  There  is  a  good  sketch  of  it  in  Pressense's 
Martyrs  and  Apologists,  bk.  iii. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     193 

philosophic  culture,  of  exceptional  literary 
ability,  who  of  deliberate  purpose  sets  him- 
self down  to  assail,  undermine,  and  over- 
throw Christianity  by  all  the  resources  of 
knowledge,  argument,  and  raillery,  at  his 
command.  He  sets  about  his  work  in  no 
light  spirit,  but  as  one  who  feels  that  he  must 
bend  all  his  powers  to  attain  his  end.  To 
fit  himself  for  this  task  he  makes  a  minute 
study  of  the  Christian  writings,  keenly  notes 
every  assailable  point,  makes  himself  ac- 
quainted with  the  Christian  beliefs,  then, 
passing  to  the  synagogue,  gathers  up  all  the 
slanders  which  Jewish  malice  could  invent. 
It  is  fair  to  say  that,  like  Pliny,  he  acquits 
the  Christians  of  the  grosser  calumnies  which 
were  urged  against  them,  but,  short  of  this, 
he  spares  no  pains  to  damage  and  discredit 
the  sect  And  we  may  be  sure  that  in  this 
desire  to  know  something  about  the  Chris- 
tians and  their  literature  Celsus  did  not 
13 


194         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

stand  alone.  But  even  this  clever  opponent 
of  Christianity  cannot  close  his  volume  with- 
out giving  us  involuntarily  a  glimpse  of  the 
real  situation.  Having  exhausted  his  artil- 
lery of  argument  and  mockery,  he  betakes 
himself  to  something  nearly  approaching 
entreaty.  "  The  conclusion  of  The  True 
Word"  says  Dr.  Bigg,  "  is  creditable  both  to 
the  sagacity  and  to  the  temper  of  its  author. 
But  when  the  persecutor  thus  found  his 
weapons  breaking  in  his  grasp,  and  stooped 
to  appeal  to  the  generosity  of  his  victim,  it  is 
evident  that  the  battle  was  already  lost."  J 

In  yet  another  form,  the  same  lesson  of 
the  powerful  influence  which  Christianity 
was  exercising  on  the  thought  and  religion 
of  the  age  is  taught  by  those  extraordinary 
and  bewildering  manifestations  of  religious 
phantasy  which  we  ordinarily  name  Gnosti- 

1  Platonists  of  Alex.,  p.  267.  Cf.  Uhlhorn's  Conflict 
of  Christianity,  p.  279. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     195 

cism.  Gnosticism  is  peculiarly  the  heresy  of 
the  second  century.  We  can  best  judge  of 
the  scale  of  its  influence,  and  the  acuteness  of 
the  crisis  it  evoked,  by  observing  the  extent 
to  which  it  bulks  in  the  existing  literature  of 
the  period.  The  whole  of  Irenaeus,  a  great 
part  of  Tertullian,  the  whole  of  Hippolytus 
nearly,  and  not  a  little  of  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, are  devoted  to  its  refutation.  This 
does  not  take  account  of  lost  treatises.  But 
we  have  only  to  consider  the  nature  of  this 
singular  appearance  to  see  that  it  is  one  of 
the  most  convincing  testimonies  we  possess 
to  the  power  with  which  Christianity  was 
penetrating  the  innermost  regions  of  thought 
and  speculation  in  the  second  century.  This 
is  the  side  of  the  subject  to  which,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  justice  has  not  always  been  done. 
Harnack,  e.g.,  properly  lays  stress  on  Gnosti- 
cism as  a  phenomenon  of  the  first  importance 
in  the  early  Church.     He  hits  off  its  charac- 


196         NEGLECTED   FACTORS  IN   THE 

teristic  by  describing  it  as  an  acute  stage  of 
that  Hellenising  of  Christianity  which  after- 
wards was  accomplished  more  gradually  in 
the  development  of  the  Catholic  dogma.1 
But,  without  discussing  at  present  the  justice 
of  this  view,  it  is  surely  obvious  that  if  Gnos- 
ticism was  on  the  one  side  an  acute  Hellen- 
ising— I  should  prefer  to  say  Orientalising — 
of  Christianity,  it  was  not  less  on  the  other  an 
acute  Christianising  of  Hellenic  and  Oriental 
speculations.  Gnosticism  has  this  peculiarity, 
that  it  is  the  result  of  a  blending  of  Christian 
ideas  with  the  floating  religious  and  theosophi- 
cal  speculations  of  the  time,  especially  those 
derived  from  an  Oriental,  or  a  mixed  Greek 
and  Oriental,  source.  It  was  a  product  which 
did  not  spring  up  spontaneously  in  the  minds 
of  the  mechanics  and  slaves  and  women  and 
children,  whom  most,  like  Celsus,  suppose 
to  have^jbrjmed_„the  _bulk  of  the  Christian 
1  Cf.  his  Hist,  of  Dogma,  I.  p.  223  ff.  (E.T.). 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     197 

communities,  but  could  only  have  taken  its 
rise  in  minds  of  a  more  cultured  and  specula- 
tive cast  This,  indeed,  was  its  claim — to  be 
a  religion  of  "  Gnosis,"  or  knowledge,  for  the 
more  highly  trained  or  elite.  It  could  only 
exist  at  all,  therefore,  as  the  result  of  a 
Christian  ferment  which  had  entered  these 
speculative  circles,  and  was  there  powerfully 
at  work.  Baur  rightly  appreciates  the  situa- 
tion when  he  says  : — "  Gnosticism  gives 
the  clearest  proof  that  Christianity  had  now 
come  to  be  one  of  the  most  important  factors 
in  the  history  of  the  time,  and  it  shows 
especially  what  a  mighty  power  of  attraction 
the  new  Christian  principles  possessed  for  the 
highest  intellectual  life  then  to  be  found 
either  in  the  Pagan  or  in  the  Jewish  world." x 
Above  all,  these  systems  are  a  striking 
witness  to  the  impression  produced  on  the 
heathen  mind  by  the  great  Christian  idea 
1  Hist,  of  Church,  II.  p.  1  (E.T.). 


i98         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

of  Redemption.  "When  the  Gnostic  sys- 
tems," says  Neander,  "  describe  the  move- 
ment which  was  produced  in  the  kingdom 
of  the  Demiurge  by  the  appearance  of 
Christ  as  the  manifestation  of  a  new  and 
mighty  principle  which  had  entered  the 
precincts  of  this  lower  world,  the)'  give  us  to 
understand  how  powerful  was  the  impression 
which  the  contemplation  of  the  life  of  Christ, 
and  of  His  influence  on  humanity,  had  left 
on  the  minds  of  the  founders  of  these  sys- 
tems, making  all  earlier  institutions  seem  to 
them  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  Chris- 
tianity."1 We  must  beware,  therefore,  of 
underestimating  either  the  extent  or  the  in- 
tensity of  this  great  intellectual  ferment  set 
up  by  the  gospel  in  the  heart  of  heathenism. 
The  Gnostic  sects  multiplied  with  extraordi- 
nary rapidity,  and  the  influence  exercised  by 
their  most  renowned  teachers,  as  Basilides 
1  Hist,  of  Church,  II.  p.  8  (Bohn). 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     199 

and  Valentinus,  was  exceptionally  great. 
The  Church  of  the  Marcionites — only,  how- 
ever, partially  Gnostic — long  maintained  its 
ground  as  an  independent  ecclesiastical 
organisation. x 

From  the  phenomena  just  considered  in  the 
sphere  of  the  Church,  we  turn  now  to  survey 
briefly  certain  scarcely  less  striking  facts 
which  meet  us  on  the  ground  of  Paganism. 
It  is  well  understood  that  the  second  century 
was  an  age  of  ethical  and  religious  revival;! 
but  it  is  not  always  realised  how  powerful 
this  current  of  revival  was,  and  how  remark- 
able were  some  of  the  forms  which  it  as- 
sumed. I  have  said  that  this  age  of  the 
Antonines  was  an  age  of  lecturing,  preach- 
ing, teaching,  and  declaiming,  beyond  all 
precedent.  From  the  time  of  Vespasian  the 
Empire  had  been  provided  with  a  hierarchy  of 
rhetoricans  and  grammarians,  whose  business 
1  Cf.  Did.  of  Christ.  Biog.,  III.  p.  819. 


200         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

it  was  to  instruct  the  people  in  all  liberal 
arts ;  and  society  was  overrun  with  profes- 
sional talkers,  debaters,  moralists,  ready  to 
supply  oratory  on  any  subject  to  whoever 
cared  to  pay  for  it.  There  was  little  in  this 
sophistic  declamation  to  make  the  world 
wiser  and  better ;  yet  it  is  undeniable  that 
towards  the  end  of  the  first,  and  during  the 
course  of  the  second  century,  a  certain  glow 
of  moral  enthusiasm  began  to  spread  itself 
through  the  Empire,  accompanied  by  a 
manifest  revival  of  religious  faith  and  earnest- 
ness.1 In  some  of  its  representatives  this 
fervour  rose  almost  to  a  kind  of  Apostolic 
zeal.  "  It  is  too  often  forgotten,"  says  Renan, 
"  that  the  second  century  had  a  veritable  Pagan 
preaching  similar  to  that  of  Christianity,  and 
in  many  respects  in  accord  with  the  latter."  2 

1  On  this  religious  revival  in  the  second  century, 
see  Friedlander,  Sittengeschichte,  III.  pp.  430-33  ; 
Bigg's  Christian  Platonists  of  Alex.,  pp.  23  ff. 

2  Marc-Aurele,  chap.  iii.  p.  45.  Cf.  Lightfoot, 
Ignatius,  p.  449. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    201 

An  early  type  of  this  species  of  "itinerant 
homilists,"  as  Merivale  names  them,  "  who 
began  from  the  Flavian  period  to  go  about 
proclaiming  moral  truths,  collecting  groups 
of  hearers,  and  sowing  the  seeds  of  spiritual 
wisdom  and  knowledge  on  every  soil  that 
could  receive  it,"1  was  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
to  whose  gifts  of  teaching  was  added  the 
repute  of  miraculous  powers.2  Other  and 
loftier  types  of  this  Pagan  ministry  are  the 
celebrated  Dion  Chrysostom,3  in  the  reigns 
of  Nerva  and  Trajan,  and  Maximus  of  Tyre 

1  Romans  under  the  Empire,  chap.  lxvi. 

2  His  life,  with  romantic  embellishments,  was 
written  by  Philostratus  at  the  request  of  the  Empress 
Julia  Domna,  a.d.  217.  See  Newman's  sketch  of  it  in 
his  Life  of  Apollonius  Tyancvus,  and  Bigg's  Christian 
Platonists,  pp.  243-247. 

3  On  Dion,  eighty  of  whose  orations  remain  to  us, 
see  the  interesting  sketch  in  Merivale,  Romans  under 
the  Empire,  chap.  lxvi.  "  The  name  of  Chrysostom," 
he  says,  "  may  have  already  reminded  us  of  the  most 
illustrious  of  the  ancient  Christian  orators,  and  his 
speeches,  of  which   large  numbers  are   preserved, 


202         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

under  the  Antonines. l  Epictetus,  the  greatest 
name  in  the  history  of  Stoicism  after  Seneca, 
is  the  noblest  representative  of  the  movement 
on  its  earnest  philosophic  side.  With  all  this 
went  on,  as  the  accompaniment  and  counter- 
part of  these  better  features,  a  vast  develop- 
ment of  superstition,  an  inrush  of  Oriental 
cults,  a  craving  for  theurgy  and  mysteries,  a 
general  susceptibility  to  dupery,  giving  rise 
to  such  characters  as  Alexander  of  Abono- 
tichus,  the  most  stupendous  example,  per- 
haps, of  successful  charlatanry  in  history.  2 

may  be  compared,  with  little  disadvantage,  with  the 
sermons  of  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  for  their 
warm  appeals  both  to  the  heart  and  the  conscience 
of  their  hearers." 

1  Forty-one  orations  of  Maximus  are  preserved. 
On  him  and  the  others  see  Hatch,  Hibbert  Lectures, 
pp.  6-242,  &c.  The  sketch  of  ^Elius  in  Friedlander, 
III.  p.  440,  may  also  be  consulted. 

2  Cf.  Froude's  "  A  Cagliostro  of  the  Second  Century" 
in  Short  Studies,  vol.  iv.  In  this  and  other  sketches 
in  vols.  iii.  and  iv.,  Froude  gives  admirable  charac- 
terisations of  the  period. 


EARLY    PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     203 

What,  now,  are  we  to  say  of  this  remark- 
able revival  movement  in  second  century- 
heathenism,  and,  in  particular,  can  it  be  \ 
affirmed  that  Christianity  had  anything  to  j 
do  with  it  ?  The  majority  of  writers  would 
probably  answer — No.  I  cannot,  however, 
share  this  view.  It  seems  to  me  primti  facie 
unreasonable  that,  in  summing  up  the  forces 
which  helped  to  give  the  age  its  character, 
we  should  take  account  of  every  stray  in- 
fluence from  East  to  West — of  Epicureanism, 
of  Stoicism,  of  Pythagoreanism,  of  Isis-  and 
Mithras- worship,  of  an  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
of  a  Dion  Chrysostom,  of  charlatans  even 
like  Alexander  of  Abonotichus;  but  that  no 
influence  whatever  should  be  attributed,  or 
allowed,  to  this  constantly  present  and  in- 
tensely active  force  of  the  Christian  religion. 
It  is  true  that  Christianity  was  persecuted, 
was  regarded  with  contempt  and  scorn,  but 
we  must  not  be  deceived  by  this  into  sup- 


204         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

posing  that  its  influence  was  not  telling 
silently  and  secretly  on  multitudes  in  the 
Empire,  and  that  it  was  not  affecting  Pagan- 
ism in  many  indirect  ways,  even  where  the 
obligation  to  it  was  not  openly  acknowledged. 
We  saw  before  that  Epictetus  alludes  to  it 
but  once,  and  with  contempt,  but  there  is 
good  reason  for  believing  that  he  was  not 
unacquainted  with  its  Scriptures  or  unin- 
fluenced  by  its   teaching. 

I  believe  that  we  profoundly  err  in  assum- 
ing that  the  borrowing  of  ideas  and  moulding 
of  institutions  in  this  age  was  all  on  the 
part  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  that  a  very 
considerable  influence  was  not  going  out  also 
from  the  Christian  Church  on  the  religion 
and  life  of  Paganism.  Dr.  Hatch,  for  in- 
stance, would  see  in  the  lecturing  and  de- 
claiming of  this  rhetorical  age  the  origin  of  the 
Christian  sermon.1  But  might  we  not,  with 
1  Hibbcrt  Lectures,  p.  113. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     205 

equal  reason,  reverse  the  supposition  ?  Is  it 
not,  at  least,  as  likely  that  the  example  of  the 
Christian  Church,  its  unceasing  and  intensely 
zealous  propaganda,  extending  now  over 
more  than  a  century,  and  presenting  so 
splendid  an  example  of  success,  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  kindling  the  enthusiasm 
and  quickening  the  Apostolic  zeal  of  such 
itinerant  preachers  as  Dion  and  Maximus  ? 
Take  the  picture  of  that  Christian  propa- 
ganda as  furnished  by  so  sober  a  pen  as 
Friedlander's.  "The  example  of  the  first 
Apostles,"  he  says,  "  unceasingly  stirred  up 
imitators  in  constantly  increasing  number, 
who,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel, 
shared  their  possessions  with  the  poor,  and 
grasped  the  travelling-staff  in  order  to  carry 
the  Word  of  God  from  people  to  people, 
and  whose  zeal  neither  wearied  nor  grew 
cold  under  the  greatest  difficulties  and 
dangers.     The  Christians  were  zealous  (says 


206         NEGLECTED    FACTORS   IN   THE 

Origen)  to  sow  the  seed  of  the  Word  in  the 
whole  world.  The  messengers  of  the  new 
doctrine  visited  not  only  cities,  but  also 
villages  and  farms ;  nay,  did  not  shun  to 
force  themselves  into  the  interior  of  families, 
and  to  place  themselves  between  those  re- 
lated by  blood."  *  The  success  which 
attended  this  zealous  gospel  preaching  in 
Rome,  in  Bithynia,  in  Carthage,  in  Antioch, 
everywhere,  we  have  already  seen,  and  it  was 
a  constant  object-lesson  to  the  Pagans,  who 
felt  their  own  faith  crumbling,  and  were 
looking  round  for  means  with  which  to 
combat  the  victorious  progress  of  the  new 
religion  which  emptied  their  temples,  and 
made  even  the  purchase  of  sacrifices  to 
cease.  Can  we  believe,  then,  that  it  had 
nothing  to  do  with  awakening  their  emula- 
tion, and  inciting  them  to  a   similar   propa- 

1  Sittengeschichte,  III.  p.  517. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     207 

gandism  ?  l  Their  silence  and  contempt  go 
for  nothing.  When  Maximin2  and  Julian 
conceived  the  idea  of  re-modelling  the  Pagan 
priesthood  as  a  set-off  to  the  Christian 
hierarchy,  they  did  not  proclaim  in  so  many 
words  that  it  was  this  hated  sect  they  were 
imitating,  any  more  than  the  Anglican 
Church,  when  the  Evangelical  Revival  was 
pouring  new  life  into  its  veins,  made  public 
acknowledgment  of  its  indebtedness  to 
Wesley  and  Whitefield.  In  a  similar  way, 
it  is  no  disproof  of  the  manifold  influences 
with  which  Christianity  was  bathing  the 
Paganism  of  the  second  century,  that  the 
recipients  of  the  benefit  do  not  acknowledge 

1  Merivale  points  out  that  Dion  Chrysostom  had 
probably  a  connection  with  Flavius  Clemens,  the 
consul,  who  suffered  for  his  faith  under  Domitian. 

2  Cf.  Euseb.  ix.  4.  "  Maximin  perceived  the 
power  that  existed  in  the  Catholic  Church  with  its 
wonderful  organisation,  and  conceived  the  stupendous 
idea  of  rejuvenating  Paganism  by  creating  a  Pagan 
Catholic  Church  "  (McGiffert's  note). 


208         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  source  from  which  it  comes.  We  see  the 
change  that  is  in  process ;  we  mark  the  new 
spirit  and  the  energetic  propaganda ;  we 
know  that  this  has  come  into  existence  with 
the  example  of  the  Christian  Church  before 
it,  and  the  influences  of  the  Christian  faith 
permeating  every  pore  of  the  old  system  ; 
and  we  think  it  not  unreasonable  to  suppose 
that  there  is  a  connection  between  the  facts. 

This  influence  of  Christianity  which  we 
indicate  is  probable  in  itself,  and  the  pre- 
sumption in  its  favour  is  strengthened  when 
we  consider  certain  other  features  in  the 
religious  condition  of  the  age,  which  it  is 
difficult  to  avoid  tracing  in  some  measure 
to  Christian  influence.  It  has  been  hinted 
above  that  the  second  century  was  an  age 
not  only  of  ethical,  but  of  religious  revival. 
It  was  an  age  characterised  by  a  new  sense 
of  sin  and  weakness,  by  a  longing  for  re- 
demption from  these  evils,  by  a  yearning  for 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY     209 

immediate  communion  with  the  Deity,  by 
the  craving  for  the  assurance  of  a  blessed 
life  hereafter.  Outwardly,  it  was  marked  by 
a  great  influx  of  foreign  cults,  and  specially 
by  the  introduction  of  new  forms  of  heathen 
mysteries,  and  the  extraordinary  develop- 
ment and  rapid  spread  of  the  latter.  The 
chief  were  those  of  the  Phrygian  Cybele,  of 
the  Egyptian  Isis  and  Osiris,  and  of  the 
Persian  Mithras — the  types  which  promised 
most  satisfaction  to  the  cravings  referred 
to.1  The  effects  of  these  mysteries  on 
the  ideas  and  usages  of  the  Christian 
Church  have  been  traced  by  Dr.  Hatch  and 
others,  not  without  some  exaggeration,2  but 

1  Cf.  on  this  subject  of  the  mysteries,  Boissier's  La 
Religion  Romaine,  bk.  ii.,  chap.  ii. ;  Anrich's  Die 
Antike  Mysterienwesen  ;  Hatch's  Hibbert  Lectures,  x.  ; 
Cheetham's  Mysteries  :  Pagan  and  Christian  ;  Bigg's 
Christian  Platonists.  The  older  and  newer  literature 
may  be  seen  in  Cheetham. 

2  Cheetham's  book  deals  with  some  instances  of 
this. 


210         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

the  counter-question  of  a  possible  influence 
of  Christianity  on  the  mysteries  has  received 
but  scant  attention.  Yet  I  believe  there  is 
an  important  field  to  be  worked  here  also. 
The  mysteries,  especially  those  which  sprang 
up  in  the  time  of  the  Empire,  deserve  the 
closest  study  we  can  give  them.  They 
represent,  as  Renan  has  said,  the  most 
serious  phase  of  Pagan  religion — are,  in  a 
sense,  the  underground  Church  of  Heathen- 
ism. But  it  is  necessary  also  to  study  them 
with  discrimination,  and  to  distinguish 
carefully  times  and  seasons,  and  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  development.  When  we 
do  this,  we  discover  that  the  special  period 
of  growth  of  these  new  cults  is  from  the 
second   century   onwards x  ;    that    there    are 

1  "  This  new  development  of  the  mysteries,'5  says 
Anrich,  "  is  conditioned  by  the  re-awakening  of  the 
religious  life  which  exhibits  its  slight  beginnings  in 
the  first  century,  in  order  from  that  steadily  to  in- 
crease, till  in  the   third   century  this  new  type   of 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    211 


certain  ground-features  in  which  they  all 
agree ;  but  that  their  distinctive  forms 
rites,  and  terminology  are  often  a  later 
formation,  and  are  strongly  affected  by  the 
conditions  of  the  age.  Among  these  con- 
ditions we  do  not  think  it  unreasonable  that 
the  Christian  Church — the  most  formidable 
rival  of  the  mysteries  in  the  Empire — should 
be  included.  It  is  certain  that  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church  held  the  mysteries  in  abhor- 
rence, and  that  whatever  borrowing  took 
place  from  these  on  the  Christian  side  was 
unconscious,   and   in    a    sense    involuntary.1 

religious  tendency,  essentially  different  from  the  piety 
of  earlier  times,  has  become  the  all-controlling  power 
of  the  age  "  (p.  35).  He  observes  how  the  Isis-cult  had 
a  rapid  development  after  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  and  in  the  third  century  "  was  perhaps  most 
widely  spread,  and  at  all  events  the  most  important 
religion  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  and  how  the  Mithras- 
cult,  which  begins  to  spread  in  the  first  century 
"  reached,  however,  first  in  the  age  of  Diocletian  and 
Constantine  its  highest  bloom  "  (pp.  43-45). 
1  Anrich,  p.  235  ;  Cheetham,  p.  78. 


:/ 


212         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

But  it  is  not  so  unlikely  that  the  patrons 
of  the  mysteries  should  adopt  terms  and 
features  from  the  language  and  worship  of 
the  Christian  Church.  And  that  they 
actually  did  so  seems  the  simplest  expla- 
nation of  various  striking  facts.  I  may 
refer  to  the  prominence  given  in  the  later 
mysteries  to  the  idea  of  the  ow/jp,  and  the 
description  of  the  promised  blessing  as 
(jujTiipia x — for  though  these  terms  are  not 
new  in  Paganism,  they  are  brought  into  new 
connections,  and  acquire  a  deeper  significance 
in  the  age  we  are  speaking  of.  So  again, 
we  have  the  use  of  such  terms  as  renatus,  or 
\renatusintterHun*?  to  designate  the  initiated 
\  person ;  we  have  new  expiatory  rites,  cul- 
minating in  the  hideous  Taurobolium  3 ;  we 

1  Cf.   Anrich,   pp.  47,   49.      Mithras  came  to  be 
called  (Tiorrip.    On  the  older  usage,  see   Cheetham, 

P-  IS- 

2  See  passages  in  Anrich,  pp.  47,  53,  &c. 

3  Ibid.  pp.  51-2  ;  cf.  Bigg,  pp.  258. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF   CHRISTIANITY    213 

have  curious    resemblances  to  the   Christian   j 
Sacraments,1     which     the      early      Christian  / 
writers  could  only  explain  by  supposing  that/ 
the    demons    had   invented    a   caricature  o: 
Christian     ordinances     with     the     view     of 
throwing  discredit  on   the  latter 2  ;  we   have 
the    further  developments    of   the    initiation 
of    very   young    children — a   sort   of    infant 
baptism  3 — and,   in    general,   the   growth   of 
something  like  a  Church  idea  in  these  secret 
celebrations.4     When  we  remember  the  hold 
taken  on  Gnostic  minds  by  the  ideas  of  the 
Gwriip    and    of    redemption,   and   reflect   on 
the  half-pagan  character  and  wide  diffusion 
of    many    of    the    Gnostic    sects,    we    may 

1  Cf.  Harnack,  as  below.  These  resemblances 
were  chiefly  in  the  Mithras-cult. 

2  Cf .  Justin,  Apol.  i.  66  ;  Tert.  De  Press.  Hevr.,  40 ; 
and  see  Harnack,  Hist,  of  Dogma,  I.  p.  118  (E.T.). 

s  Anrich,  p.  55. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  56.  "  The  worship  of  Mithras  in  the 
third  century,"  says  Dr.  Harnack,  "  became  the  most 
powerful  rival  of  Christianity  "  (I.  p.  118,  E.T.). 


214         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

perhaps — even  apart  from  the  direct  influence 
of  the  Church — see  a  channel  through  which 
the  ideas  of  Christianity  might  filter  into 
purely  Pagan  circles.  Dr.  Bigg,  in  his 
lectures  on  The  Christian  Platonists  of  Alex- 
andria has  some  suggestive  remarks  on  this 
point,  which  are,  I  think,  in  the  main  correct. 
"  The  disciples  of  Mithra,"  he  says,  "  formed 
an  organised  hierarchy.  They  possessed 
the  ideas  of  mediation,  atonement,  and  a 
Saviour,  who  is  human  and  yet  divine,  and 
not  only  the  idea,  but  a  doctrine  of  the 
future  life.  They  had  a  Eucharist  and  a 
baptism,  and  other  curious  analogies  might 
be  pointed  out  between  their  system  and 
the  Church  of  Christ.  Most  of  these  con- 
ceptions, no  doubt,  are  integral  parts  of  a 
religion  much  older  than  Christianity  [some 
of  them  on  the  other  hand  do  not  seem  to  go 
beyond  the  second  or  third  century].  But 
when   we  consider  how  strange  they  are  to 


EARLY    PROGRESS   OF  CHRISTIANITY    215 

the  older  polytheism  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
and  when  we  observe  further  that  Mithra- 
ism  did  not  come  into  vogue  till  the  time 
of  Hadrian,  that  is  to  say,  till  the  age  of 
Gnosticism,  we  shall  hardly  be  wrong  in 
judging  that  resemblances  were  pushed 
forward,  exaggerated,  modified  with  a  special 
view  to  the  necessities  of  the  conflict 
with  the  new  faith,  and  that  differences, 
such  as  the  barbarous  superstitions  of  the 
Avesta,  were  kept  sedulously  in  the  back- 
ground with  the  same  object.  Paganism 
was  copying  Christianity,  and  by  that  very 
act   was  lowering  her  arms."  z 

Fully  to  estimate  the  force  of  these  con- 
siderations, it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind 
the  evidence  which  has  already  been  adduced 
as  to  the  extent  to  which  Christianity  had 
penetrated  literary  circles,  and  had  become 
known  to  learned  opponents,  who  employed 
1  P.  240 ;  cf.  Cheetham,  pp.  77,  146. 


216         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

their  best  abilities  to  discredit  and  destroy  it 
— in  vain. 

Much  might  be  said  of  the  writings  of  the 
old  Catholic  Fathers,  and  especially  of  the 
famed  Alexandrian  school,  in  illustration  of 
the  subject  we  are  considering.  For  how 
clear  is  the  evidence  in  the  writings  of  these 
Fathers  of  the  hold  that  Christianity  had 
taken  of  men  of  the  most  powerful  intelli- 
gence and  widest  learning ;  how  plain  the 
indications  that  it  had  become  a  subject  of 
the  profoundest  theological  reflection  ;  how 
complete  its  victory  over  the  brilliant  Auf- 
kldrung  of  Gnosticism  ;  how  evident  the 
alliance  which  had  been  effected  between  it 
and  the  best  elements  of  the  Greek  wisdom — 
that  revelation  in  reason  which  the  Alex- 
andrian Fathers,  with  Justin,  traced  to  the 
illumination  of  the  pre-incarnate  Logos  !  If 
the  school  of  Harnack  sees  in  the  theological 
movement  of  this  period  an  amalgamation  of 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    217 

Greek  intellectualism  with  Christianity,  it 
must  in  consistency  recognise  that  the  pre- 
vailing Greek  spirit  had  been  seized  and  was 
being  led  captive  by  the  new  faith.  And 
that  of  itself  speaks  to  a  mighty  internal  force 
of  assimilation.  Without,  however,  dwelling 
on  this,  I  hasten  to  speak  of  what  is,  after  all, 
perhaps  the  most  striking  proof  of  the  influ- 
ence of  these  Fathers  of  the  Early  Church  on 
contemporary  religious  thought — I  mean  the 
rise  of  Neo-Platonism  in  the  third  century. 
In  this  century,  as  we  previously  saw,  the 
river  whose  course  we  have  been  tracing  flows 
no  longer  underground,  but  comes  to  the 
light  of  open  day.  The  fact  of  a  Christian 
influence  on  the  intellectual  currents  of  the 
age  is  all  too  patent  to  be  further  denied.  I 
referred  in  the  previous  lecture  to  the  eclectic 
temper  of  this  age,  and  to  its  characteristic 
embodiments  in  Julia  Domna,  the  talented 
wife  of  the  Emperor  Septimus  Severus,  and 


218         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

in  Alexander  Severus,  a  succeeding  emperor. 
Julia  Domna  gathered  round  her  at  her  court 
a  brilliant  literary  circle.  It  was  at  her  com- 
mand that  Philostratus  wrote  the  "  Life  of 
Apollonius " * — partly,  there  is  reason  to 
believe,  as  a  parallel  to  the  representation  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels.  Alexander 
Severus  went  further,  and,  as  formerly  nar- 
rated, placed  the  statue  of  Christ  along  with 
those  of  Abraham,  Pythagoras,  and  others  in 
his  lararium,  besides  inscribing  the  Golden 
Rule  on  his  walls  and  monuments.  "Men 
sought,"  says  Dr.  Bigg,  "  to  distil  an  elixir 
from  all  religions,  from  all,  that  is,  except 
Christianity,  which  they  never  name " — a 
statement  which  needs  to  be  slightly  quali- 
fied. "  Yet,"  he  goes  on,  "  the  church  from 
which  they  avert  their  eyes  as  from  the  angel 

1  Cf.  Classical  Dictionary,  Art.  "Philostratus"; 
Newman's  Apollonius  Tyanccus  ;  Bigg's  Christian 
Platonists,  p.  246. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    219 

of  doom,  is  really  the  prompter  and  guide  of 
all  their  efforts."  1  Under  these  intellectual 
and  spiritual  conditions,  arose  the  new  form 
of  opposition  to  Christianity  which  we  de- 
nominate Neo-Platonism.  The  founder  of 
this  school,  Ammonius  Saccas — whose  lec- 
tures Origen  for  a  time  attended  at  Alex- 
andria— was  born  of  Christian  parents,  and, 
indeed,  for  a  time  himself  professed  Chris- 
tianity.2 Here  is  proof,  if  such  were  needed, 
of  a  strain  of  Christian  influence  entering 
into  Neo-Platonism  at  the  commencement. 
Ammonius,  it  should  be  remarked,  had  an 
important  precursor  in  the  second  century, 
Numenius,  who  likewise  was  moulded  by 
Jewish  and  Christian  influences.3  The  ideas 
of  the  founder  were  developed  by  his  more 

1  Christian  Platonists,  p.  242. 

2  Eusebius,  Ecc.  Hist.  vi.  19.  Eusebius  will  not 
admit  that  he  ever  apostatised,  but  this  is  evidently 
a  mistake. 

3  Cf.  Bigg,  pp.  251-3. 


220         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

famous  pupil  Plotinus,  and  carried  still 
further  by  the  third  great  teacher  Porphyry. 
The  Neo-Platonic  system  thus  developed, 
while  bitterly  hostile  to  Christianity,  is  really 
the  strongest  testimony  to  its  power.  It  not 
only  shows  upon  itself  the  distinct  mark  of 
Christian  ideas — e.g.  in  its  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  respecting  which  Bigg  truly  remarks 
— "  It  may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  no 
Trinity  is  to  be  found  in  any  Pagan  philo- 
sopher who  was  not  well  acquainted  with 
Christianity "  J ;  it  was  not  only,  as  Schaff 
has  observed,  "  a  direct  attempt  of  the  more 
intelligent  and  earnest  heathenism  to  rally  all 
its  nobler  energies,  especially  the  forces  of 
Hellenic  and  Oriental  Mysticism,  and  to 
found  a  universal  religion,  a  Pagan  counter- 
part to  the  Christian  "  2  ;  but  it  testifies  to  the 
changed  attitude  towards  Christianity  in  the 

1  Cf.  Bigg,  p.  250. 

=  Church  Hist.  (Ante-Nic),  p.  99. 


EARLY   PROGRESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY    221 

fact  that  it  no  longer  poured  unqualified 
ridicule  on  the  new  religion  as  Celsus  had 
done,  but  dealt  with  it  rather  in  the  philoso- 
phical eclectic  spirit  characteristic  of  the  time, 
condemning  only  its  exclusive  claims.  It 
reckoned  Christ  among  the  sages  ;  professed 
respect  for  His  personal  teaching,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  corrupted  doctrines  of  His 
Apostles,  and  sought  to  appropriate  its 
spiritual  elements  to  itself.  "  The  Neo- 
Platonists,"  says  Augustine,  "praised  Christ, 
while  they  disparaged  Christianity."  "  We 
must  not,"  said  Porphyry  himself,  "calum- 
niate Christ,  but  only  those  who  worship 
Him  as  God."  z  But  the  battle  was  a  hope- 
less one.  "  Under  the  banner  of  Neo- 
Platonism,"  says  Dr.  Lightfoot,  "and  with 
weapons  forged  in  the  armoury  of  Chris- 
tianity itself,  the  contest  is  renewed.  But 
the  day  of  heathenism  is  past.  This  new 
1  Augustine,  City  of  God,  xix.  23. 


222         NEGLECTED    FACTORS   IN    THE 

champion  retires  from  the  field  of  conflict  in 
confusion,  and  the  gospel  remains  in  posses- 
sion of  the  field."  x 

Here  I  must  close.  Other  parts  of  the 
field  I  am  compelled  to  leave  well-nigh 
untouched,  especially  that  relating  to  the 
influence  of  Christianity  on  social  life  and 
legislation.  This,  at  the  same  time,  is  the 
part  of  the  subject  which  has  been  least 
neglected.  It  has  often  been  shown  with 
abundance  of  illustration  how  revolutionary 
were  the  ideas  and  principles  of  the  holy  and 
spiritual  religion  which  had  its  birth  in  Judaea 
when  introduced  into  the  unspeakably  corrupt 
society  of  the  Graeco-Roman  Empire.2  To 
the  profligacy  of  that  effete  heathen  world, 
Christianity  opposed  its  own  fresh,  young 
life,  and  glowing  spiritual  ideals ;  to  its  pride, 

1  Philippians,  p.  319. 

2  Cf.  the  works  of  Troplong,  Schmidt,  Uhlhorn, 
Lecky,  Loring  Brace,  with  the  histories  of  Milman, 
Pressense,  Schaff,  &c. 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    223 

the  proclamation  of  a  common  fall  and  a 
common  salvation  ;  to  its  selfish  egoism,  the 
demand  for  a  universal  charity ;  to  its  denial 
of  the  rights  of  humanity,  the  doctrine  of  the 
love  of  God,  and  of  the  spiritual  dignity  of 
man  as  made  in  the  image  of  God  ;  to  its 
degradation  of  woman,  the  assertion  that 
in  Christ  Jesus  there  is  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  male  nor  female,  bond  nor  free * ; 
to  its  contempt  for  labour,  the  recollection 
of  the  Carpenter,  and  the  injunction  "  Take 
thought  for  things  honourable  in  the  sight 
of  all  men."2  Opposed  at  nearly  every 
point  to  the  existing  Pagan  order,  it  yet 
gave  to  the  world  of  that  time  exactly 
what  it  needed,  implanted  within  it  the 
seeds  of  emancipation  and  renewal.  If  it 
could  not  save  the  old  Roman  Empire,  it  at 
least  laid  within  it  the  foundations  on  which 
the  rearing  of  a  new  order  could  proceed — 
Gal.  iii.  28.  -  Rom.  xii.  17. 


224         NEGLECTED   FACTORS   IN   THE 

rendered  possible  the  rise  of  a  rejuvenated 
and  progressive  Europe.  The  pure  morals 
and  blameless,  self-denying  lives  of  the  Chris- 
tians, were  the  strongest  points  the  Apologists 
for  the  new  religion  could  urge  in  its  favour. 
Thus  Tertullian  powerfully  contrasts  the 
private  virtues  and  public  morality  of  his 
fellow-believers  with  the  foul  conduct  of  the 
Pagans,  and  challenges  his  opponents  to 
produce  instances  of  Christians  in  the  long 
list  of  those  committed  to  prison  for  their 
crimes.1  If  there  were  exceptions,  it  was 
only  as  it  must  happen  to  the  healthiest  and 
purest  body,  that  a  mole  should  grow,  or  a 
wart  arise  on  it,  or  freckles  disfigure  it.2  The 
heathen  themselves  bore  involuntary  testi- 
mony to  the  superior  excellence  of  the 
Christian  character  by  appealing  to  it  in 
rebuke  of  the  lack  of  virtue  in  one  another.3 

1  ApoL,  42-46 ;  Ad  Nat.  i.  4.  2  Ad  Nat.  i.  5. 

3  "  You  are  accustomed  in  conversation  yourselves 


EARLY   PROGRESS   OF   CHRISTIANITY     225 

As  respects  legislation,  naturally  little  could 
be  done  till  the  Empire  had  become  publicly 
Christian,  but  with  Constantine  we  have 
already  numerous  enactments  which  show 
the  new  spirit  that  had  entered  society,1  and 
under  the  succeeding  emperors  these  evi- 
dences of  Christian  influence  are  multiplied.2 
The  Theodosian  code  is  little  more  than  a 
compilation  of  the  decisions  of  the  Christian 
emperors.  Even  in  the  earlier  period,  it 
is  not  wholly  unreasonable  to  see  in  the 
gradual  ameliorations  introduced  into  many 
of  the  laws  under  the  influence  of  the  newer 
Stoicism  an  indirect  result,  at  least  in  part, 

to  say,  why  is  so-and-so  so  deceitful,  when  the  Chris- 
tians are  so  self-denying  ?  why  merciless,  when  they 
are  so  merciful  ?  "  &c. — Ad  Nat.  i.  5. 

1  Julian  termed  Constantine,  "Novator  turbatorque 
priscarum  legum  et  moris  antiquitus  recepti "  (Amm. 
Marc.  xxi.  10).  See  a  sketch  of  his  reforms  in  the 
laws  relating  to  women,  children,  slaves,  &c,  in  Diet, 
of  Christ.  Biog.  I.  pp.  636-7. 

2  See  Loring  Brace's  Gesta  Cliristi,  passim. 

15 


226  NEGLECTED   FACTORS 

of  that  atmosphere  of  mercy  with  which 
the  Christian  Church  was  already  bathing 
Paganism.1 

In  leaving  the  subject,  I  can  only  express 
the  hope  that  these  lectures,  however  im- 
perfect, may  have  done  something  to  intensify 
our  sense  of  the  mighty  power  which,  as 
the  Divine  Leaven  introduced  into  humanity, 
Christianity  from  its  first  entrance  into  the 
world  exercised  on  everything  it  touched, 
and  to  guard  against  the  tendency,  still  too 
prevalent,  unduly  to  minimise  its   influence. 

1  Cf,  Troplong,  L  Influence  du  Christ.,  p.  83,  &c. 


APPENDIX 


NOTE  ON   THE   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  THE 
ACILII 

(in  Frontispiece). 

FOR  the  drawings  of  these  inscriptions,  I  am 
indebted  to  the  Rev.  Archibald  Paterson, 
B.D.,  Rosslyn,  who  from  his  first-hand  researches 
kindly  furnished  me  with  information  regarding 
them.  They  should,  he  thinks,  probably  be 
restored  and  identified  as  follows : — 

i. 

Acilio  Glabrioni  Acilio  Glabrioni 

Filio  or  Filio 

M'  Acilii  Glabrionis       M'  Acilius  Glabrio 

Cos.  Pater. 

227 


228  APPENDIX 

Deceased  may  have  been  the  son  of  Manius 
Acilius  Glabrio,  consul  in  a.d.  124,  the  latter 
probably  being  the  son  of  the  consul  of  a.d. 
91,  who  suffered  under  Domitian,  in  a.d.  95. 

2. 

Manius  Acilius  Verus 

Clarissimus  Vir, 

PUELLA  (?) 


et  (?)  Priscilla  Clarissima 

Femina  (?) 

May  be  the  children  of  Manius  Acilius  Glabrio, 
consul  in  a.d.  152  [son  of  the  consul  of  a.d. 
124],  and  Vera  Priscilla,  who  is  known  from  an 
inscription  to  have  been  the  wife  of  a  Manius 
Acilius  Glabrio.  The  Manius  Acilius  Glabrio 
who  was  her  husband  may,  however,  have  been 
the  consul  of  this  name  in  a.d.  186  [son  of 
the  consul  of  a.d.  152].  In  this  case  the  children 
will  be  their  offspring. 

3- 

A  fragment  probably  of — 
Acilia 
M[arci]  Acilii, 
belonging  to  the  family  of  Marcus  Acilius  Vibius 


APPENDIX  229 

Faustinus,  who  was  one  of  the  Salii  before  a.d. 
170;  or  to  the  family  of  Marcus  Acilius  Priscus 
Egrilius  Plarianus,  who  lived  at  the  same  time. 

4- 
KXavSiov  AksiXiov    OvaXepiov  [Xctfnrp oTa.Tov~\  veavicncov. 

It  is  known  that  Claudius  Acilius  Cleoboles 
(grandson  of  the  consul  of  a.d.  186)  derived 
his  name  Claudius  from  adoption  by  Tiberius 
Claudius  Cleoboles,  consul  suffectus  (year  un- 
certain). The  name  Valerius  is  from  the  mother's 
side.  The  inscription  cannot  be  earlier  than  the 
third  century. 


INDEX 


Abercius,  of  Hieropolis,  54 
Acilius  Glabrio,  consul,  125 
ff.  ;   inscriptions  of  Acilii, 
frontispiece,    and     appen- 
dix, 227 
zElius  Aristides,  167,  202 
Alexandria,    Church   of,  31, 
60 ;  mixed  state  of,  66-7  ; 
school  in,  68,  216  ;  wealth 
of,  140  ff. 
Alexander  Severus,  emperor, 

147,  218 
Alexander    of   Abonotichus, 

51,  202-3 
Ambrose,  of  Milan,  158 
Ammonius  Saccas,  219 
Anrich,   on  Mysteries,  209- 

13,  passim 
Antioch,  Church  of,  its  num- 
bers, 73-83 
Apollonius,     senator,      137, 

146 
Apology,  of  2nd  century,  34, 


58  ;  its  significance,    185- 

90;  224 
Aristides,  apology  of,  45 
Armenia,  conversion  of,  88 

Baur,  15  ;  on  apologists, 
188 ;  on  Gnosticism,  197 

Bigg,  C,  146,  194-5,  209- 
20,  passim 

Bithynia  -  Pontus,  Pliny's 
testimony,  48  ff.  ;  129, 
206 

Blandina,  martyr,  137 

Boissier,  G.,  on  spread  of 
Christianity,  27ff.;  ignoring 
of  Christianity  by  pagans, 
168,  170  ;  influence  of 
Christianity,   175,   183 

Brace,  Loring,  on  influence 
of  Christianity,  19,  225 

Cecilia,     St.,     see     Cata- 
combs. 
Catacombs,     character    and 


231 


232 


INDEX 


extent  of,  35  flf.  ;  testi- 
mony to  numbers  of 
Christians,  33-5,  39-41  ; 
inscriptions,  98  ;  testimony 
to  wealth  of  Christians, 
113  ff.,  132  ff.  ;  cemeteries 
of  Lucina,  118;  of  Domi- 
tilla,  123  ;  of  the  Acilii, 
126  (with  frontispiece 
and  appendix)  ;  of  Prse- 
textatus,  132  ;  of  Caecilia, 
134  ff. 

Cappadocia,  Church  in,  56 

Caracalla,  emperor,  146 

Carthage,  Church  of,  30  ; 
numbers,  61  ff.  ;  rank  and 
wealth,  139-43  ;  martyr- 
dom of  Perpetua,  143-4  ; 
206 

Celsus,  his  True  Word,  59, 
71,  99,  167,  192-4  ;  196, 
221 

Chastel,  on  nos.  of  Chris- 
tians, 24 

Cheetham,  on  Mysteries, 
209-12 

Christianity,  influence  of 
paganism  on,  18,  163, 
204,  209  ;  effects  of 
Christianity  on  paganism, 
20  ff.  ;  on  pagan  preach- 
ing, 204  ff.  ;  on  Mysteries, 
210  ff.  ;  on  morals  and 
legislation,  222  ff. 

Chrysostom,  on  Church  of 
Antioch,  75  ff.;  158 


Churches  in  Rome,  Corinth, 
Ephesus,  Galatia,  An- 
tioch, Bithynia,  Pontus, 
Cyrene,  Alexandria,  Car- 
thage, Gaul,  Spain,  &c. — 
See  under  these  heads. 

Claudius,  emperor,  his  edict, 
42 

Clement,  of  Rome,  43 

Clement,  of  Alexandria, 
on  luxury  of  Christians, 
1 41-2  ;  Gnosticism,  195  ; 
216 

Commodus,  emperor,  145 

Corinth,  Church  of,  32,  107, 
108-9,  I3°>  1 7 1-2 

Cyprian,    of    Carthage,    86, 

Cyrene,  Church  in,  31 

Decian  Persecution,  86, 
149  ff. 

De  Rossi,  G.  B.,  on  Cata- 
combs, 34,  117,  123,  135, 
175,  179,  183 

De  Rossi,  Michele,  measure- 
ments of,  37  ff. 

Diocletian,  emperor,  perse- 
cution of,  87  ff. ;  152  ff. 

Dion  Chrysostom,  201,  205 

DionysiuSi  of  Alexandria, 
148,  150,   158 

Domitilla,  Flavia,  122  ff. ; 
cemetery  of,    123 

Domitian,  emperor,  perse- 
cution of,  121  ff. 


INDEX 


233 


Elagabulus,  emperor,  147 
Elvira,  Council  of,  86,  157 
Emperors,  see  under  names. 
Ephesus,  Church  of,  44,  108, 

1 7 1-2 
Epictetus,  183,  204 
Eusebius,  references  to,  48, 
51,  54,  56,  59,  73-4,  78, 
82,  87-90,  123,  130,  137, 
145-6,  148,  152-3,  154-6, 
207 

Farrar,  F.  W.,  141,  177 

Flavius  Clemens,  consul, 
his  martyrdom,   122  ff. 

Friedlander,  on  numbers  of 
Christians,  24,  116  ;  on 
obscurity  of  Church,  165— 
6  ;  177,  179,  183,  200, 
202  ;  on  the  Christian 
propaganda,  205 

Froude,  J.  A.  202 

Galatia,    Church    in,    55, 

57,  171 
Gaul,    Christianity    in,    30, 

81  ff. 
Gibbon,  on  numbers  of  Chris- 
tians, 24,  39,   68,   78  ff.  ; 

47,  5i,  122 
Gnosticism,  58,  184,  194  ff., 

213,  215-16 
Greek  Spirit  and  Christianity, 

17,  164,  187,  196 
Gregory   Thaumaturgus,   52, 

158 


Hadrian,  emperor,  66-8 
Harnack,  quoted,   116,   124, 

J33,  l63,  2I3  J  referred  to, 

118,    123,    128,    164,   195, 

216 
Hasenclever,     on     rank     of 

Christians,  64,   118;   177 
Hatch,    E.,    16,    1S5,    202, 

204,  209 
Hefele,  on  Councils,  84,  86 
Hennas,  on  Roman  Church, 

130 
Herod  Atticus,  133,  191-2 

Ignatius,  59,  73,  129 
Imperial  Court,  Christianity 

in  the,  116,  124,  145  ff. 
Irenasus,  of  Lyons,  59,  64, 

82,  146,  195 

Julia  Domna,  her  influence, 
146,  217 

Julian,  emperor,  74,  77, 
207,  225 

Justin  Martyr,  on  spread  of 
Christianity,  47  ;  on  wealth 
of  Church,  132  ;  as  apolo- 
gist, 186-9  J  x92,  213,  216 

Keim,  on  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity, 27 

Lanciani,  on  Catacombs, 
36  ff.,  115,  123,  133, 
134,  152  ;  on  Hadrian,  68 

Lightfoot,  Bishop,  referred 
to  or  quoted,   16,  43,  45, 


234 


INDEX 


48,   50,   54,    55,   58,  67, 

116,    118,    121-3,   126-7, 

129,     130,     134-5,     173, 

177-80,  182,  221 
Lucian,  of  Antioch,  martyr, 

on  diffusion  of  Christianity, 

90 
Lucian,  on  Pontus,  51  ;  his 

Peregrinus  Proteus,  192 
Lyons,  its  importance,  82-3  ; 

martyrdoms,  82,  136 

Marcus  Aurelius,  em- 
peror, 133,  189  ;  relations 
to  Christianity,  166,  17 1, 
191 

Martyrdoms,  of  Ignatius, 
Polycarp,  Justin,  at 
Vienne  and  Lyons,  Per- 
petua,  Sec,  see  under 
names. 

Maximin,  emperor,  his  per- 
secution and  letter,  89,  207 

Maximus,  of  Tyre,  201-2, 
205 

Merivale,  referred  to  or 
quoted,  32,  1 12-13,  133, 
169,   185,  201 

Milmati,  82,  90,  142 

Mithras-cult,    209,    211-13, 

215 

Mommsen,  50,  55,  85,  116 

Mosheim,  47 

Mysteries,  in  Roman  Empire, 
209 ;  possible  influence  of 
Christianity  on,  210  ff. 


Neander,  155,  198 
Neo-Platonism,  149,  217  ff. 
Nero,    emperor,   persecution 
of,    43  ;   his   palace,   116, 

175 
Neumann,  17,  42,  64,  138 
Northcote    and     Brownlow, 

on     Catacombs,     36     ff., 

114  ff.,    132  ff. 

ORiGEN,on  numbers  of  Chris- 
tians, 68  ff.  ;  intelligence 
of,  98-9,  144  ;  relations 
with  Court,  145-9,  158, 
219 

Paganism,  ethical  revival 
in,  199  ff . ;  pagan  preach- 
ing, 200-2  ;  religious  re- 
vival, 208  ff. 

Pamphilus,  of  Csesarea,  158 

Paul  and  Thecla,  Acts  of,  128 

Perpetua  and  her  com- 
panions,  143  ff. 

Persecutions  under  Nero, 
Domitian,  Trajan,  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,  Severus, 
Decius,  Valerian,  Diocle- 
tian, Maximin,  see  these 
names. 

Phrygia,  Christianity  in,  53, 
88 

Pliny,  correspondence  with 
Trajan,  28,  48  ff.,  129, 
167-8,   193 

Pomponia  Gnecina,  117,  136, 
179 


INDEX 


235 


Pontus,  51 

Porphyry,  220- 1 

Pudens  and  Claudia,  11 9-21 

Ramsay,  W.  M.,  referred  to 
or  quoted,  17,  31,  42,  48, 
53-5>  96,  105,  116,  128, 
167-8,  182 

Renan,  53,  83,  191,  200,  210 

Ritschl,  16 

Robertson,  Canon,  27 

Roman  Empire,  population 
of,  24-5,  29 

Rome,  Church  of,  41-44, 
78-9,  129-36,  137,  139, 
206.     See  Catacombs. 

Schaff,  Philip,  34,  38,  220 

Schultze,  Vict.,  31,  32  ;  on 
numbers  of  Christians, 
24-5,  43>  51*56-7,  65,  75, 
83-6 ;  on  rank  of  Chris- 
tians, 99,  112 

Seneca,  relation  to  Chris- 
tianity, 175  ff. ;  Epistle  to 
Lucilius,  180 

Septimus  Severus,  emperor, 
persecution  of,  138  ff. ;  146 


Silence  of  Pagan  writers 
on  Christianity  :  how  ac- 
counted for,   166  ff. 

Social  rank  of  Christ's  per- 
sonal disciples,  100  ff. ;  of 
early  converts,  104  ff. 

Spain,  Church  in,  85  ff.,  157 

Tacitus,  28,  43,  117 

Tertullian,  on  numbers  of 
Christians, 28, 6 iff.;  rank  of, 
139,141-2 ;  on  Gnosticism, 
195  ;  the  Mysteries,  213, 
31,  48,  84,  86,  147,  224 

Trajan,  emperor,  persecution 
under,  48,  129 

Tryphaena,  Queen,   128 

Uhlhorn,  26,  59,  146,  194 
Urania,  daughter   of  Herod 
Atticus,  133,  192 

Valerian,  emperor,  perse- 
cution of,  148,  151 

Vienne  and  Lyons,  martyr- 
doms, 82,   136 

Withrow,  38,  116 


TJNWIN  BROTHERS, 
WOKING  AND   LONDON. 


Date  Due 


8M 


]  — 


